


On Feathers and Bacon Sandwiches

by Kryptaria



Series: Feathers 'verse [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Asexual Sherlock, But not dark, Fluffy!demon, M/M, No ducks or demons were harmed in the making of this fic, demon!John, featuring special guest stars: ducks, wing!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-10
Updated: 2012-09-16
Packaged: 2017-11-13 23:38:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kryptaria/pseuds/Kryptaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one has ever stayed with Sherlock longer than a month. At least, no human. Fortunately, John Watson isn't about to let the little things - like biohazardous experiments and the constant threat of danger - get in the way of his friendship with a very special, very brilliant man like Sherlock Holmes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Перья и Сэндвичи с беконом](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4470374) by [Hedwig221b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hedwig221b/pseuds/Hedwig221b)



> Thanks as always to my dearest Snogandagrope, Mitaya, and Anihan for cheerleading, beta-ing, and encouraging me to indulge in this insanity! This entire fic was written in under twelve hours, not counting a brief break for sleep. It was entirely unplanned.
> 
> ~~~

John Watson was a good man: a man who, as a teenager, had chosen to dedicate his life to saving lives; a man who, as a young man, had set foot on the path of selfless duty, to save the lives of those who risked all in combat, for Queen and country.

A man who, as he lay dying, looked at the soldier bleeding out a few feet away, and felt only regret that he hadn’t placed the pressure bandage in time to save the other man’s life.

A man who died without regret, content with the life he’d lived.

 

~~~

 

There are altars to the powers of Hell everywhere — places considered cursed, where the barrier between the worlds is thinnest, either by accidental collision of the planes or by design.

(There are altars to the powers of Heaven, too. Really, the only difference between Heaven and Hell, other than politics, is a change of address. At the heart of it all, the power stays the same.)

These altars are, for the most part, dormant. It takes a special kind of boost to get them working. Spilled blood and ended lives are a good way, almost infallible, but one can, in a pinch, make do with anything. Prayers, chanting, even meditation — all of it works. It’s all about the _intent,_ you see.

Human are perceptive enough, in their own way, that in most cases, these altars have been found and suitably decorated. In ages past, this took the form of sacred groves, huts where priests meditated to the sound of their own breathing, or community grounds visited during a seasonal pilgrimage. In later years, the humans built temples and churches and, in many cases, actual physical altars.

Once or twice, perhaps through planning committee accidents, humans ended up building a particularly prosperous shopping mall on these sacred sites.

Whatever was there, though, these sites remained intrinsically unchanged. Humanity’s trappings were just the packaging. The contents stayed the same, so to speak. And both sides, Heaven and Hell, watched these sites, some with more diligence than others, because these altars... Well, they might better be described as portals. Gates. Conduits for power and prayers, wishes and dreams and nightmares. Souls.

And, of course, angels and demons.

 

~~~

 

Blood and power. Blood and power. Blood and power flowed across the miniscule rip between the worlds, a crack through which one might pass unseen, if one were nimble and stealthy and very, very clever.

It came through on the passing energy of a dying breath, the last beat of a failing heart, the final splatter of blood that no longer pumped but instead poured into gravity’s embrace. For one instant, a passage of time so small that one measure of Planck time would be an eternity by comparison, the world screamed at the invasion, because what came through was not meant to be — not here, in the world of humans and mammals and insects and reptiles and amphibians, not in a world where the laws of physics and chemistry and science were laws and not merely suggestions, because what came through was neither human nor mammal and obeyed no laws of science. It was _other_.

And then it disappeared, following the flow of power that faded, and the portal snapped shut in its wake as it hid, stretching and folding and realigning itself to fill the matter and cells that made up a human body, because in a world of humans, there was no better place to hide than among them. And while the body changed, the body remained intrinsically human, a shape in which the lungs expanded and contracted, the heart pumped and blood moved, and mitochondria oxidized biochemicals into energy, and neurons fired and sparked as an inhuman intelligence settled and made itself comfortable, like a human moving into a new house, rearranging the furniture and unpacking clothing and putting up shelves for books.

John Watson’s eyes opened, and for the first time, it — no, _he_ — saw sunlight on bloody sand, and it was more beautiful than his memory of what he thought Heaven had once been. For one glorious, wonderful, unbelievably perfect moment, the world was more beautiful than anything else in all the planes and all the universe.

And then, everything went dark as it — no, _he_ — realized the downside to being human: it _hurt_.

 

~~~

 

Getting shot had one positive outcome for the thing which was called, by other humans, John Watson. (Or ‘Captain’ or ‘Doc’ or ‘Johnny’, which he loathed, or any other number of names, because _names_ had no power over humans, and they could call themselves whatever they pleased.)

Actually, there were two positive outcomes. First off, it provided a body in which to hide. And second, nobody expected any sort of interaction beyond flailing and occasionally screaming. Memories stored in the brain cells provided optional nuances that could be applied to the flailing and screaming: things like clutching fabric and issuing threats, or shouts that humans considered ‘oaths’ or ‘swearing’ or ‘cursing’, though these oaths held no power to the oathholder or oathsworn, and none of the curses actually did anything satisfying.

Well, on one occasion it did, but that’s because while _humans_ held no power to make their curses stick, Captain-Doc John call-me-Johnny-and-you-will-grow-unpleasant-tentacles Watson _did_ have that power and used it, entirely unintentionally, when he didn’t realize that he should let the anaesthesia send him into unconsciousness so the surgeons (not torturers, he realized) could get on with their work. As soon as his body’s memories told him what was going on, he repaired the curse, scrubbed the unpleasant memory from all the humans, and allowed the anaesthesia to do its work.

Unconsciousness, that awkward separation of mind and body, gave him an extended chance to rifle through the body’s memories. It was much like reading a book. Before this time, the entity that had existed before John Watson had rather enjoyed absorbing knowledge, though that had once been an actual biological process. _Thinking_ was also a biological process, but not in the same way.

In any case, John Watson learned — or perhaps it would be better to say he _remembered_ — that he had a sister and another sister who wasn’t biologically related but was an oath-sister and progenitors, neither of whom were living, and no certainty of any offspring, though apparently humans did that sort of thing without actually realizing it. He was a doctor, an expert in rebuilding damage to human bodies. And when he remembered all that knowledge, he was able to precisely understand the damage that the bullet had caused, damage traumatic enough to have shocked John Watson’s soul to its ultimate rest, leaving the body conveniently available for use.

And with that knowledge came the understanding that John Watson would probably end up going home — not Hell, of course, but back to a nation a quarter of the way around the Earth. That would be convenient. The humans there wouldn’t have recent experiences with John Watson, and thus wouldn’t pick up on any oddities of behavior. How very convenient.

 

~~~

 

The key to the whole charade, of course, was to live _as a human_. All John Watson had to do was act just like the rest of them, and they’d never have reason to believe he was anything but one of them. Of course, that meant adopting a routine of sleeping and eliminating biological waste, which were his first concerns while in what his borrowed memories told him was a ‘field hospital’.

He had to suppress his _self’s_ inclination to just heal the most obvious damage, because that would be noticeable. He did, however, take the time to repair more subtle damage to the lungs (minor exposure to smoke and toxic chemicals), liver (more chemical damage, though not in marked quantity for the past few years), mutated skin cells (caused by solar radiation), and time, though he did leave the cosmetic effects of time untouched. Humans would notice if the pigmentation-free hair and excess folds of skin suddenly disappeared.

Food came next, once the doctors took out the intravenous nutrient supply. At first, that was inconvenient and seemed rather silly. Why on earth would humans _not_ just hook themselves up to IV nutrition and forget about the fuss?

Then he actually _ate_.

And another phrase came to mind: toe-curling pleasure. A thousand subtle tastes and textures slid over his tongue, lighting up pleasure centers deep in his brain. _Tea,_ he identified, with additives like _artificial sweetener_ and _artificial creamer_. A sandwich, white bread and lettuce and tomato, and by all the powers of Heaven and Hell, something his brain recognized as _bacon_.

“Those MREs really that bad, cutie?” asked the female who’d brought him the meal.

He identified her as American (accent, phrasing) and a nurse (uniform, actions) and within the parameters that his memory said was attractive (tall, high cheekbones, low body fat ratio, curved lips, blue eyes). A smile was the proper response, so he did that before he picked up something else on the plate. His memories stopped him from eating the napkin, and he put it to its intended use instead, scrubbing at his lips and the incredibly inconvenient growth of hair on his face. He analyzed her words, recognized MREs as falling under the soldiers-complain-about category, and his memories supplied an experience for him to contrast with eating the sandwich and tea.

“Terrible,” he answered honestly one full second after her question — an _eternity_ for his consciousness, but time ran so very slowly here. It was relaxing.

Her lips curved even more, showing straight white teeth. “Well, you seem to be doing much better,” she said, looking from where he lay on the uncomfortable bed to the machines beside him. More softly, she told him, “Finish that up and I’ll bring you a surprise.” She closed one eye for a moment.

Not that he needed incentive, but he nodded — a convenient, universal sort of response — and ate another bite of his sandwich. Now that he knew what to expect, he was able to analyze more subtle sensations ( _flavors,_ his memory supplied), and the second bite was even better than the first.

But that was nothing compared to the surprise that the nurse (“Call me Lisa, cutie.”) brought him later: chocolate.

Imagine that. The forces of Heaven and Hell had been at War for so long that not even the eldest on either side actually remembered _why_. And what had the humans been doing? Inventing chocolate.

Coming here might well have been the best decision he’d ever made.

 

~~~

 

Humans who were ‘in hospital’ were permitted to act within a broader set of parameters than that generally permitted for humans who were healthy. Those who’d been in combat, especially subject to experiences considered mentally traumatic, were given far more latitude in the judgement of what was and wasn’t ‘normal’. So it was that none of the doctors, nurses, specialists, and physiotherapists realized that the thing that claimed to be John Watson actually wasn’t.

( _He_ didn’t actually claim to be John Watson, at least not at first. That was the name on the identity tags, which he found incredibly useful — though the fact that his first name had been spelled JH had given him a moment of confusion until he realized those letters were initials standing for John Hamish. In any case, his True Name was irrelevant, at least as far as the humans were concerned. None of them knew it, and most would go insane if they tried to read it, much less pronounce it. So, ‘John Hamish Watson’ suited just fine.)

The problem came weeks after he’d integrated comfortably into his human body and his human routine. He’d been doing just fine, or so he’d assumed. He’d been put on a plane (which seemed _horribly unsafe,_ flying based solely on rather shaky scientific principles rather than good, useful wings) and sent somewhere damp and cold, away from the desert and the altar where he’d come through. And that was good — distance was good, because the last thing he wanted was for someone _else_ to slip through, recognize him, and either attack him or, worse, try and send him back.

But the whole flying thing — _human_ flying — was unnerving, so when he was finally alone, he pulled off his shirt —

(And clothing was _very_ strange, but very good when it was soft and not so good when it was scratchy, stiff, or embedded with artificial ballistic plates.)

— and sank into his _self_. And at his back, wings spread, unseen at first, shifting from a place that was _other,_ slowly melting into the human world and becoming real.

It felt _good_ in a way that food was good, if not even better. He stretched his wings, tips brushing against the walls, and ruffled up his feathers, reveling in the new experience of air traveling between the quills, and he stretched some more, until his wing smashed into a table. The lamp went flying, and he _almost_ lashed out with power that crackled over his body, sparking along his feathers.

And then the door clicked, a faint _shush_ of sound as a human hand skimmed over the knob, and he had an infinitely long moment in which to hide his wings from human sight and to try and pick up the lamp, because by then he’d learned that when humans dropped things, they picked up those things.

The door opened. He twisted to look, and his body, still balanced for wings that he no longer had, went crashing down next to the overturned table and lamp. And all of it had happened in no time at all — not even a half-second had passed since the time he’d knocked over the lamp — which now crashed spectacularly into the room before going dark.

And _that_ was how he’d got himself into his present mess.

Real injuries were difficult to deal with. Remembering to sustain _fake_ injuries was a bloody headache, pun intended. (Humans were so very clever with language; just one more thing to love about them.)

Real injuries merited doctors. Apparently, fake ones did, too, only this new doctor wanted to root around through his psyche to help him come to realizations about himself and to acclimatize to living life as a civilian. Which _was_ useful — it really was — because ‘civilian’ was another word for ‘human’, in a lot of ways. And if there was something that his memories didn’t cover, he’d learned he could simply ask Doctor Ella Thompson, and she’d guide him to the right response or behavior or way to avoid an awkward situation.

But his blasted leg was another matter altogether, because he really, _really_ couldn’t explain that he’d knocked over a lamp with his wings and overbalanced, and the doctor had assumed it was because of some sort of limp for which there was no physiological cause.

At least the therapy gave him something to do, though — a routine that reminded him he couldn’t sit and watch humans, fascinating as they were, _all the time_. Eventually someone would notice.

 

~~~

 

He hadn’t existed for this long, though, without learning how to be clever. He _could_ watch humans, as long as he moved around and didn’t focus on one in particular. And there was another human with whom he was expected to associate — the sister — though he’d been trying to avoid that as long as possible. If anyone would pick up on odd behavior, human-John versus demon-John, it would be her, or so he assumed.

Wrongly, as it turned out. They met at a pub (because that’s what most humans did — met at pubs) and she was already so drunk (chemically distanced from reality) that he could’ve taken out his wings and smacked her in the head, and she might not have noticed.

“Still love ’er,” Harry (his sister) slurred, blinking glassy eyes at him as she stared across the table. She picked up her pint and drained the rest of it, then shoved the empty glass his way. “She’s beau’ifull. Why’d she hafta go an’ leave?”

 _Because you’re ridiculously tedious,_ he thought, though he knew not to say it. A world full of possibilities and experiences and _reality,_ and this was what Harry did for fun? This was physically and mentally damaging, expensive and time-consuming, and if she was really that desperate for something with which to fill her time, she could go feed the ducks in the park.

(He’d discovered the ducks at a park three days after being sent — via unsafe airplane, again — to London. He almost regretted taking a human body. Ducks had a surprisingly rich society, though they were a bit lacking philosophically. Still, they were good to talk to, when no humans were around.)

Instead, he picked up her empty glass and went to go buy more. That was also what humans did.

When he came back with two fresh pints (privately wishing the pub had more food than just snacks and chips), Harry snatched at hers and slumped even farther forward, almost lying on the table now. “’M I really tha’ bad?” she asked.

“Maybe she’ll change her mind,” he answered. John Watson had been a very understanding, empathic man, perhaps because his memories were full of situations just like this. The phrase ‘navigating an emotional minefield’ often came to mind whenever Harry’s name surfaced in his memories.

“You always liked ’er,” Harry said, only it came out like an accusation. Her tears were still there, but now her eyes were narrowed, her jaw tight — aggression, he recognized. “You _always_ liked ’er. Always tryin’ ta steal my girls.”

The hard kick under the table caught him entirely by surprise.

He managed not to set the pub on fire, though it was a close thing. Instead, he said, “Right. That’s enough, Harry. Let’s get you home.”

And he didn’t set her on fire, either, even when she threw up on him. All in all, he thought he was adjusting to human life quite nicely.


	2. Chapter 2

All things considered, six months into his life as a human, he was doing very well indeed at being human — better, in fact, than a lot of humans.

Namely Sherlock Holmes.

After six months of living a dull routine, it was all John could do to keep up with him. Sherlock Holmes was the type of chaos that most humans associated with storms, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.

In the space of two days, Sherlock Holmes had assaulted a corpse, violated four separate safety protocols that were dimly etched in John’s memory from his time as a student at the hospital, socially assaulted six separate people (including John himself), and then taken John on a date.

And then it wasn’t a date — it was a suicide attempt, and John had to chase Sherlock down, mind scrambling to figure out how to keep Sherlock from killing himself in a way that wouldn’t make him suspicious of John.

So much for his ‘limp’. However, he didn’t get rid of his therapist — not yet, anyway. She still might well have useful advice. He was, in fact, thinking that he’d bring Sherlock Holmes with him to his next session and get her first-hand opinion on how to manage him. Living with Sherlock was probably a terrible mistake.

Unfortunately, he’d never been one to back down from the lure of a new adventure. Otherwise, he would’ve just stayed in Hell.

 

~~~

 

The next morning, he came downstairs once he heard Sherlock start to move around the living room. Sherlock had fallen asleep on the sofa, and the rules of social engagement meant that John shouldn’t disturb him. So last night, after the shooting and the Chinese food and the emergency personnel, John had crept up to his bedroom, quiet as he could manage, and had spent the night laying halfway out the window, watching the stars through the cloud cover. The rain had been a bit inconvenient, but not once he’d figured out how to time his blinks right.

“Breakfast?” he offered, going right for the refrigerator, already thinking of bacon sandwiches. Humans were _ingenious_. Bacon _and_ bread, with nothing else to get in the way. It was unfortunate that chocolate didn’t go well with that, but he’d have some later.

“If you like,” Sherlock answered. “If there’s anything.”

John waited a moment, but the sentence seemed to end there. So he shrugged and opened the fridge.

No bacon.

He _did_ identify an assortment of biological and chemical material that wasn’t suitable for humans to eat — not even the ones who were cannibals.

Carefully, he moved a few plastic-wrapped parts around to look behind them. No bacon, definitely.

In the last six months, he’d learned that John Watson hadn’t known everything there was to know. Of course not. So he’d learned that when dealing with a knowledge gap, it rarely hurt to ask.

“What do you eat, then?” he asked, looking over at Sherlock, who was watching him from the living room. They’d bought the Chinese takeaway from a small, all-night restaurant some distance away, and it was all gone.

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed and his head tilted slightly, barely enough to shift the fall of his hair. “Busy with a case. I didn’t bother going for groceries. There’s food downstairs at the café, or Mrs. Hudson might have cooked something.”

Cafés didn’t have bacon, most of the time, but John could work with that. They’d have pastries. Pastries and coffee. And that was almost as good as bacon sandwiches and tea.

“Right,” he agreed, and went upstairs to go change into ‘outside’ clothes.

 

~~~

 

A quarter-hour later, John sat in what was apparently ‘his’ chair (humans claimed territory just as other predators did, though thankfully they were less messy about it) and bit into a scone that was delightful. A little dry and crumbly, sweet without being overpowering... Yes, this flat could work out very nicely.

(Privately, John hoped whoever had come up with artificial sweeteners ended up in Hell. Food wasn’t meant to be that imperfect a reflection of _real_ food.)

“You killed a man last night,” Sherlock said.

John nodded, and though the motion started off as a casual acknowledgement of a fact, he caught himself as his memories warned him that killing people was the type of traumatic emotional event that ended up with fake limps and therapists. He was absolutely _not_ doing that again, though, so he just said, “As you said last night, he was a very bad man.”

Sherlock made a little noise. It wasn’t a sound of distress or threat, though, so John ignored it in favor of taking another bite of the scone. He should’ve bought more, though money was a problem — a big problem, in fact, especially since he had yet to find out how much his share of the monthly bills were.

(Thankfully, the military had given him a ‘life coach’ to help him figure out things like income from a pension, how to navigate his bank account, and the necessity to pay for things like rent and food. A lot of his questions had apparently been answered politely and without remark because of the post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis on his paperwork. He could ask _anything_ and get an answer.)

The scone was excellent. The coffee was almost as good. Next time, he’d try it with just milk, though. The sugar cut down on the bitter taste of the coffee, and he had a suspicion that it was masking nuances that he should experience. Really, he should have tried coffee long before today, but tea had been _so good_.

Last night, Sherlock had introduced him to Italian food (their not-a-date) and Chinese food (their post-killing meal), which had also been good. Sherlock was incredibly smart, for a human, and liked making decisions, so John rose, gathered his rubbish, and said, “Think of where we’ll go for lunch.”

Sherlock stared at him intently. “Where are you going now?”

“Sorting laundry,” John answered, which was the non-answer he’d learned was a socially appropriate way of saying ‘away’.

Sherlock made that sound again and stayed where he was, though John could feel him watching as he left the room.

 

~~~

 

“And he just walked off, before they could even say a word. Not one of them had figured it out, but it had been right there in front of them, the whole time.”

“John?”

“That’s why I don’t understand. All he had to do was look at the photos, and he saw it.”

“John.”

“What?”

“You’ve been talking about Sherlock this whole session. Do you realize that?”

“Of course. You said I should discuss things that interest me.”

“And you’re interested in Sherlock?”

“Yes. Who wouldn’t be?”

“John... are you reconsidering your sexuality?”

“What?”

“You said in our introductory session that you like women — that you’re straight. It’s perfectly acceptable for you to reconsider. I’m not judging you. This is a safe space.”

“It’s actually not. A child could get past the locks on your windows — Oh. That’s not what you meant.”

“It... isn’t, but thank you. I’ll have someone see to it. So... are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Bisexual?”

“I’m not certain. How would I know?”

“Are you attracted to him?”

“Of course I am. Anyone with half a brain would be.”

“Even though he’s male?”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

 

~~~

 

The thing about ducks is that they’re social creatures. John scattered a few carefully shredded crusts and watched the ducks surge forward in a hungry display that probably looked greedy and rude, though they really did discuss it first — just not in a way humans could understand.

It was all in the feathers.

_Social creatures,_ he thought, looking over as one duck let out a polite honk and fluttered its wings. In answer, he tossed a crust that way, grinning when the duck extended its neck enough to snap the bread out of the air without having to move its feet.

Ducks were social creatures. John had been, once, but the War had changed things. Since then, he’d been a loner. He hadn’t actually been _close_ to anyone since...

Huh. He couldn’t quite recall. Probably since the dinosaurs.

He watched the ducks as they turned their attention to discussing the afternoon. There was a pond not too far away that was being restocked with fish, but some of the ducks thought it was too far to comfortably fly there and back before dark. Very democratic, ducks.

He pictured going back. Not leaving the earth — absolutely not — but going back to a solitary lifestyle in his little bedsit where no one bothered him and nothing _interesting_ happened.

He thought about Sherlock Holmes, about how his first explanation of Sherlock and their little adventure had horrified Dr. Thompson, though she’d tried to hide it and instead blandly expressed her happiness that John had come through the ‘ordeal’ unharmed.

It hadn’t been an ‘ordeal’, though. Not at all. Adventure, yes. Definitely not an ordeal.

One of the leaders of the flock let out a warning squawk and hopped up onto the bench, reminding John that he wasn’t paying attention. “Sorry,” he said, and pulled a handful of bread crusts out of the paper bag at his side. He offered a couple to the representative before throwing the rest onto the ground. The duck beside him nibbled at his sleeve before it jumped down, wings spread, and went back to organizing the flock.

A simple comparison of life before Sherlock and after brought him to the obvious conclusion: Life was better with Sherlock. John had never even imagined anyone half as interesting.

And that was it. It was _interest,_ not sexual attraction. Sex complicated relationships, but John suspected that wouldn’t be a problem. As a human, John Watson had been straight, so people would expect him to continue on that path. And Sherlock had made it clear that he wasn’t sexually interested in anyone, male or female, even though his answers had been unusually ambiguous when John had asked — almost evasive, in fact.

Well, John wouldn’t pry. They both had their secrets, after all. For now, their relationship was perfect. Sherlock didn’t want to date, and John didn’t need to date (though he would, to maintain his fiction of being the human John Watson). He’d just have to make sure that any future girlfriends understood that Sherlock came first in his life.


	3. Chapter 3

This, John reflected as he pretended to type while actually watching Sherlock, was a problem. Because Sherlock really was interesting — absolutely fascinating, in fact. Even now, after a year, John still wasn’t tired of Sherlock. Watching Sherlock had quickly replaced watching people in general as John’s favorite pastime. _People_ were predictable. Sherlock was anything but.

At the moment, he was playing the violin, standing by the window and looking out into the night. The bow rested idly in his right hand; his left hand, around the neck of the violin, clenched and flexed as he practiced some complicated sequence of touches. The sounds he produced were at the edge of human hearing, though John picked them up quite clearly with minimal effort.

Dr. Thompson had picked up on John’s fascination. He’d been regrettably obvious about it. Once he thought about what he’d said, he’d realized he’d given voice to the thoughts that had been running through his mind since he’d first laid eyes on Sherlock Holmes.

There was the question, though. Was it _sexual?_ Or was it just that Sherlock kept doing things that were interesting and exciting and engaging?

Any other human would’ve probably strangled Sherlock by now. John was already breaking out of socially acceptable parameters just by being here. There were very few types who _would_ stay, and most of them would be categorized as insane. Criminally insane, in fact.

If that was where this went, John would have to leave. A year ago, he’d killed a human because Sherlock — ridiculous, stupid Sherlock — was going to kill _himself_ if he didn’t get shocked out of it. And because the alternative had been to fly to Sherlock’s side and smack him with a wing. Several times. John considered the loss of that human’s life (only a few weeks premature, anyway, and really, he _hadn’t_ been a very nice man at all) to be a small price for saving Sherlock’s life and preserving his own secret.

But no matter how interesting Sherlock was, John wasn’t about to take up serial killing just to keep up with him and provide an explanation of why he stayed.

So, it would have to be something else. Deep, meaningful friendship. Sexual attraction. Romantic attraction. _Something_ to explain why he stayed.

‘He’s anything but boring’ only went so far, after all.

“You’re quiet,” Sherlock said in response to no particular provocation. His fingers never stopped moving on the strings.

“That a problem?”

“ _People_ aren’t quiet. They never sit and think, or they wouldn’t be nearly as stupid as they are.”

John sat forward at the strange wording Sherlock had used. He reached down into himself, feeling power spark invisibly through his inhabited body, and _stared_ at Sherlock. At his back, unseen wings flared wide, passing through furniture and walls and the floor as the feathers spread, a blatant challenge.

But there was nothing — no sign of _power_ in Sherlock. He wasn’t like John, inhabiting a host body.

He was just... human.

So John sat back again, puzzled, and let the power dissipate back into himself. “Is that your way of saying I’m not quite as stupid as everyone else?”

Sherlock tossed his head, a slight motion that usually betrayed irritation, except John realized it didn’t. He was moving his head so he could look into the glass — not _through_ it, but at the reflection of the living room instead. The warm light inside turned the glass into a clever mirror.

Sherlock’s pupils were very dark, very wide, all but obscuring his light irises in a way that was, according to John’s medical memories, alarming.

Abruptly, he rose and went to Sherlock. “What have you taken?” he demanded, trying to get between Sherlock and the window so he could see the taller man’s eyes, before a subtle odor teased at his nose. Deliberately, he sniffed, though it wasn’t something he could identify. It was sweet and pleasant and a bit like cinnamon and a bit like the rosin Sherlock used on his bow.

“You can’t tell?”

The odor was strongest at the window glass, and for a moment, John wondered if Speedy’s Café was experimenting with something new. The thought provoked a biological reaction that made his stomach growl in anticipation.

But no. The scent was _here,_ far too close to be emanating from downstairs.

He lifted a hand and touched the glass —

And jerked back with a startled gasp as the glass shocked him worse than the time he’d pried the cover off an electrical socket and poked around at the wires hidden inside.

“Ah,” Sherlock said, the sound a demonstration of deep satisfaction.

John lifted his stinging finger and felt the molecule-thin coating of oil. He scrubbed it feverishly on his jeans until the pain subsided to a dull tingle. “What are you experimenting with now?” he demanded. His memories were reliable about biological contaminants, but some of the more exotic chemical compounds escaped him.

“Tincture of belladonna and mugwort — both of which are virtually impossible to find in any decent purity in London — and holy oil.”

Startled, John turned to look at Sherlock — to _really_ look — and yes, now he could recognize the signs. He must have used the belladonna as eyedrops, the idiot. While it would alter his vision, it was also toxic. The mugwort was more harmless, something of a sedative, but it was just enough to relax his usual mental discipline and make his mind accept whatever reality it saw.

The holy oil, though, was what worried John. It was absolutely harmless to humans, except as a potential source of elevated cholesterol levels, but if it was made properly and imbued with the right power, it could make his life very, very uncomfortable.

John might have guessed that the belladonna and mugwort to be Sherlock’s latest experiments with self-medicating out of boredom. Combined with the holy oil, though... it was obvious that Sherlock’s research had brought him far from the reaches of conventional science.

Sherlock looked away, glancing at the window, which was smeared with a fine layer of holy oil. His gaze tracked away from the reflection of John’s face, but he wasn’t looking at the living room — the focus of his black, dilated eyes was all wrong for that. And it took John another moment to realize that Sherlock could see him.

_Him._

Not John Watson.

“Oh,” he said, considering which problem to address first. It was his tingling finger that decided the answer for him. He walked away from the window and went to wash his hands, hoping dish soap would be strong enough to emulsify the oil and carry it away. He’d make Sherlock deal with the window. He was the one who’d contaminated the flat; he could damn well make the effort to clean it up.

Sherlock said nothing, content to watch John’s reflection in the oily surface of the glass. Only when John returned and held out the towels and spray bottle of window cleaner did he turn from the window.

“You’re an angel,” Sherlock said.

“Technically yes, if you’re looking at it as a species and not a political party,” John answered. Both their hands were full, which made things awkward, so he hung the spray bottle of window cleaner on the music stand. That freed his hands to take the bow, which he promptly dropped with another “Ow!” because the damned thing was also covered in holy oil. He draped the towel over the music stand and went back to the kitchen, demanding, “Don’t you ever wash your hands?”

“Then you’re a demon. Or something else.”

Sighing, John turned on the tap again and stuck his stinging hand under the running water. “Yes, fine. Are you going to go shout it to everyone? I don’t want anyone to know,” he said unhappily.

He had no idea how he was going to fix this. He could remove the whole incident from Sherlock’s memory, but that wouldn’t stop Sherlock from figuring it out all over again, probably from a thousand little clues John didn’t even know he was dropping. His best bet would probably involve pushing Sherlock out the window and taking up a new identity, but he mentally didn’t want to get past even step one of that, much less step two.

He almost dropped the soap as he realized Dr. Thompson might have been on to something. He _liked_ Sherlock.

By the time the holy oil was washed off John’s skin, Sherlock hadn’t moved, except to put his violin and bow back into the case. So John went back into the living room and asked, “Well? Is this a problem?”

“How do you hide your wings?”

John sighed and sat back down. He was _not_ going near that window again. “Do you _ever_ actually answer questions?”

“Not stupid questions, no.” Deliberately, Sherlock turned his back and looked at John’s reflection in the window.

“I suppose that wasn’t a stupid question, then?”

The line of Sherlock’s back went stiff, and John smirked. Then, with a huff, Sherlock snatched at the curtains and pulled them closed. “I want to see them,” he demanded, turning to face John.

“What? No!”

Sherlock crossed his arms. “Fine. Then I’ll coat every reflective surface in the flat with holy oil and kill myself with an overdose of belladonna.”

“This isn’t encouraging me not to push you out the window.”

Sherlock sniffed. “If you were going to kill me, you would’ve done already. And if you did now, you’d upset Mrs. Hudson.”

“All right. First, how did you know?” John asked, very cautiously allowing himself to think that this might not be an irreparable disaster after all. Sherlock seemed to be taking this very calmly — that or the mugwort was affecting him more than John suspected.

Sherlock sat down, giving him a contemptuous glare that was somewhat softened, lacking the usual icy color of his eyes. “You’re _still here,_ ” was all he said.

“I live here, Sherlock. Where am I supposed to be?”

“No flatmate has ever lasted more than a month.”

John just watched him expectantly before he realized that _he’d_ been here for significantly longer than that. “I’ve been here a year” he said, surprised. He’d heard the expression ‘time flies’ before, but he’d never actually experienced it — not like this.

“Exactly one year.”

“So, for our anniversary, you decided to poison us both?”

Sherlock sighed deeply. Dramatically. Then again, he did _everything_ dramatically. Clearly, this problem wasn’t going to go away.

“Fine.” John sat forward enough to pull off his fuzzy, comfortable jumper. In a serious voice — John Watson’s ‘doctor’ voice — he said, “I really don’t want anyone to know, Sherlock.”

Sherlock made an impatient little get-on-with-it gesture. “As if they’re not all too stupid to understand? I wouldn’t waste the breath it would take to explain.”

“Wonderful. How about closing the other curtains?”

After a moment (and a glare for good measure), Sherlock went and did just that.

 

~~~

 

In a year and a half, John had learned a great deal about human experiences. He’d sifted through every one of John Watson’s memories, some fuzzy with age, some sharp with clarity despite the years, as though emotional trauma had etched them there forever. He’d learned not to trust what he saw on television as absolute truth, but instead as a warped mirror of human interaction.

But he’d never _experienced_ most emotions until now, as he unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, and realized that he was feeling something that might be shyness and might be embarrassment and, in human analogue, was all because he was actually going to show someone his wings.

If Sherlock had asked him to drop his trousers, he would have been able to do so without a second thought. He wouldn’t have — it _wasn’t done_ — but he _could_ have. Nothing to be self-conscious about in that at all.

His wings were entirely another matter, and his fingers actually became clumsy as he moved down the line of buttons. It wasn’t that he didn’t _want_ to show them. Not precisely, anyway. A part of him actually did. Sherlock’s fascinating mind made deductive and intuitive leaps that even John sometimes couldn’t follow, and he was as old as the _universe_. No, the thought of showing off was actually appealing.

But what if it wasn’t showing off at all? Humans simply didn’t have wings. His wings weren’t even supposed to be ‘wings’, because it wasn’t as if there was anything like air or gravity where he came from, so there was no need to fly. Back there, his ‘wings’ were the manifestation of his ‘self’, taking the form of waves. As in physics waves, not ocean waves. He’d only discovered that they became feathery _after_ coming to earth.

And here, his wings weren’t those neat, useless little things seen on statues — not even the somewhat larger wings that the weeping angels had. (And he definitely didn’t have their teeth.) His wings were large, for one, proportioned to his human form. His feathers weren’t all perfect. They broke and overlapped and could be torn out and sometimes grew in strangely, at least when he actually had them out. And after keeping them hidden for a year and five-odd months, he actually had no idea what condition they’d be in, once he actually allowed them to physically manifest.

“You’re reluctant,” Sherlock said, and John realized his hands had gone still, holding the open edges of his shirt front. “You’re _shy_.”

“You would be, too, if you were about to give obvious proof of your inhumanity,” John snapped.

Sherlock’s dark eyes narrowed sharply. “I do, every time I solve a case,” he said quietly.

John stared at him, realizing just how true that was. ‘Freak’ was the kindest word people had for Sherlock. A very few of them could see past it — Greg and Mrs. Hudson were the ones who came to mind most quickly; Molly, sort of, but she was blinded by what she thought was love. But even they _recognized_ Sherlock as being alien. They simply accepted it.

Apparently, it was possible to be _other_ even if you were the same species as everyone else.

John pulled off his shirt and draped it over the edge of the chair as he rose. Over the last year and a half, he’d cheated a bit, altering his metabolism to compensate for what was an admittedly unhealthy diet. There was no sense in breaking a perfectly good body, especially not when he had no idea what he was going to do at the end of a natural human lifespan. He was effectively immortal, and he could repair the effects of time indefinitely, but someone would eventually notice that sort of thing.

Either way, he wasn’t self-conscious about his human form. Quite the opposite, at least if the ‘girlfriends’ he’d had over the last year were any judge of such a thing. (He’d actually been relieved that Sherlock kept interfering in those relationships. He’d started dating because Dr. Thompson had suggested he go out with _someone,_ and since he’d already established himself as not gay, that meant finding girlfriends. He could always trust Sherlock to get rid of them before things got awkward, which was kindly done of him.)

He judged that there was just enough room for his wings if he stood at the edge of the living room and kept his feathers away from the lamp hanging over the work table in the kitchen. Still, he hesitated until Sherlock stood, glancing in the direction of the curtained windows, and finally walked around behind him.

“You know this has nothing to do with human physiology, don’t you?” John asked, looking back over the shoulder that still had a scar from the bullet that had killed his host. “If nothing else, the human skeletal system can’t —”

He cut off as Sherlock’s fingers pressed against the scar — the first time Sherlock had actually touched him, other than in the middle of a mad dash or to pull him to safety, as if John actually had to worry about things like getting shot at.

“The underlying scarring isn’t as developed as it should be,” Sherlock said, pressing hard against the muscle.

“Of course not. I repaired it,” John said, somewhat irritated by the question. “Did you really think I _wanted_ to know every time the weather changed? We live in London. Of course it’s bloody well going to rain.”

Sherlock laughed, sudden and genuine, and flattened his hand against John’s back for a moment before he stepped back. “Get on with it, then,” he said, his voice unusually warm — what would be affectionate in anyone but Sherlock Holmes.

Telling himself there was no need to be nervous, John tried to relax into himself and, for the first time in more than a year, let his wings slip free.

 

~~~

 

His wings were, to put it bluntly, a bloody mess. Not literally bloody. But his feathers were more disarrayed than if he’d lost a fight with a hurricane. Spreading his tangled feathers actually caused two of the quills to bend with loud, sharp _snaps_.

Muttering under his breath, he brushed at his wings with woefully inadequate human hands, trying to rake his fingers through the layers of long feathers along the trailing edges. He could barely reach half the secondaries, and he’d need a rake to get the primaries.

The light from the living room was interacting strangely with his feathers, something he’d never before imagined, though in retrospect, it made sense. His feathers didn’t so much as disrupt the path of the light waves as _distort_ it, and the energy that he shed simply by existing radiated as something that was almost like light.

Then a shock went right through his left wing, near the secondary coverts, and he yelped and almost spun before he froze in place. He reminded himself that one errant turn and he’d take out the whole damned apartment. “What —”

“They _don’t end,_ ” Sherlock complained. And then he dug both hands into the feathers, and with every touch, every quill that moved, electricity seemed to crawl over the wing and down John’s spine and into his throat and brain, short-circuiting _everything_.

 _Infinite quantum layers,_ John wanted to say.

What came out was more like, “Ngh.”

It was taking an impossibly large amount of his concentration just to stay on his feet.

Abruptly, Sherlock pushed through the front layers of feathers, quills bending and pulling around his fingers. As soon as his fingertips emerged, he jerked his hand back, and demanded, _“How?”_

Barely even listening, John staggered a single step forward, putting an infinitely broad, comfortable distance between his wings and the very idea of human touch. Tentatively, he ran his shaking left hand over his feathers, braced for a shock, but nothing happened. Hadn’t some human once observed that you couldn’t tickle yourself properly because you knew it was going to happen? Something about unconscious spatial awareness of one’s own body and neural anticipation.

Only _he didn’t have that_. He didn’t have neural anticipation or spatial awareness because this wasn’t _his_ body. His wings were the closest he could get to being _real_.

Then, a strangled sound tore from his throat as Sherlock touched again, this time right along the double line of scapulars that ran parallel to his human spine. There was a handspan of flesh between the wings — perfectly normal human skin and bone and muscle — and Sherlock was prodding around along what should have been a physiological connection between wing and body, but wasn’t.

“John,” Sherlock started, his voice almost breaking, though he couldn’t seem to think of how to finish whatever he wanted to say.

This was too much — too much for both of them. John tensed up and pulled his wings back into himself. They faded from view so quickly that to human eyes, it looked as if they simply disappeared. The faint glow, that oddness of light, took a moment longer do disperse.

Now that it was safe, he turned and caught hold of Sherlock’s upper arms to hold him steady. (To hold them both steady, if he was to be honest, because he was still a little shaky himself.)

“Do you need to forget?” he demanded, fingers digging into Sherlock’s arms.

Startled, Sherlock asked, “What?”

“Do you need to forget!” he repeated emphatically. “Is this too much? It’s not your reality, Sherlock. You’re a scientist, not a mystic. I can make you forget —”

_“No!”_

Sherlock’s expression was full of horror. He pulled back, shoulders hitting the door with a dull thud.

John held up his hands, trying to find the unthreatening, friendly demeanor that came so naturally to him, thanks to John Watson’s memories. “All right,” he agreed soothingly, though privately he decided that if Sherlock’s mental state seemed at all fractured, he _would_ remove this memory, no matter what Sherlock thought he wanted.

A full minute passed before either of them said anything. With his learned human instincts, John remembered he should be cold — the flat wasn’t well-insulated — but there was no sense in pretending. In fact, it was something of a relief, thinking he didn’t need to pretend _at all_ anymore.

So he smiled, a little surprised at how much better he felt, and turned for the kitchen, asking, “Tea, then?”

It took Sherlock a few seconds to say, “Yes.”

 

~~~

 

“John Watson has a history — medical, schooling, military service records. I would know if it were otherwise. Were you _born_ like that?”

John swallowed his bite of Kit Kat, licked chocolate off his finger, and shook his head. “Happened by accident, actually. This” — he touched the mass of scar tissue on the front of his chest, under his left collarbone — “was actually fatal. John Watson died on... well, it’s...” He took another bite, considering how to best explain this to someone who was unaware of the simplest concepts of astrophysics. “Think of it as a song. You have the main melody, something to establish a rhythm, a harmony or multiple harmonies, a descant, all of them weaving together, sometimes intersecting when two lines touch the same note at the same time. Right?”

Sherlock didn’t answer verbally, but he gestured with his mug of tea. He seemed perfectly sane and unharmed by the revelation of the fact that his flatmate had wings and was a demon. Or, well, as sane as he’d ever been, though not being human, John didn’t consider himself qualified to judge. The ducks would have a better chance, and he doubted that Sherlock would ever go near a pond, unless it was for a case.

“Right,” John pressed on, pausing for another bite. “So, think of your world — this physical reality — as the main melody. Heaven and Hell are two counterpoints. Sometimes, as you play through the song, one or the other touches the melody. Same note.”

“It’s a physical location.”

John grinned. “How do you do that?”

Sherlock snorted contemptuously. “I _think_.”

“Brilliantly, too.”

The contempt in Sherlock’s expression vanished, replaced by something almost like awe. “You... don’t have to pretend anymore, John,” he said as awe gave way to disappointment.

Swallowing the last bite of Kit Kat, John asked, “Who’s pretending?”

“I’m only _human,_ ” Sherlock said, now sounding even more disappointed. “Compared to a demon...”

“It’s even _more_ brilliant.” John frowned and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Once you learn the rules, humans are predictable, most of the time — but not you.”

“How can you possibly say that?”

“First off, demons are _boring,_ Sherlock. Ridiculously boring. You — and I mean you _specifically,_ not ‘you’ as a species in general — are fascinating. Even after a year, I never know what you’re going to say or do or how you even can be so _right_ despite working with almost nothing in the way of hints —”

“Clues,” Sherlock interrupted sharply.

John grinned. “And you’re still an arrogant arse, even to an immortal demon who’s as old as the bloody universe.”

Sherlock blinked at him.

Then his eyes narrowed and his lips twitched up in that smirk he got, the one that always warned John to brace himself against some startling, unexpected truth. “If you’re so all-powerful, then why were your wings such a mess?” he asked smugly.

“You’re one to talk! Half the time, you can’t even be arsed to get out of your pyjamas.”

“Half the time, it’s not worth the effort for me to try.”

John laughed, slouching back in his armchair, and asked, “See why I stay?”

Sherlock smirked, staring at John with the intensity usually reserved for corpses that had reached that state in a particularly creative way. “Not yet. But I’ll figure it out.”

“You do that,” John said, and went to get himself another cup of tea.


	4. Chapter 4

Nothing really changed at Baker Street, but in some ways, everything did.

For one thing, John stopped pretending to sleep, though he did continue to spend time on the roof, watching the stars. His diet became somewhat more unhealthy, though he was careful not to let his eating habits degrade too much. Sherlock tended to eat whatever was put in front of him, and the last thing John needed was to introduce adult onset diabetes and high blood pressure by feeding him a straight diet of chocolate and caffeine.

Considering Sherlock’s diet led John to thinking about how he’d keep Sherlock from killing himself, which led to him confiscating Sherlock’s laptop so he could use both their computers at once for research. (And it was _so nice_ that he could stop pretending to type with four fingers. Now he just needed some clever human to invent a neural interface like in those science fiction books, and he’d be set.)

Spells weren’t magic. Spells simply altered the rules of what was otherwise known as reality. They were just recorded as spells, most of the time, because humans loved to label things, and if it wasn’t science, then it was magic. So over the next couple of weeks, John combined scientific research, his remembered knowledge of human anatomy, and the much more esoteric art of magic.

Artifacts of power were much the same. Normal scientific processes — metallurgy, electrical theory, those clever little semiconductors — could be used to create items that would interact with the powers of the universe and all its myriad planes. (John couldn’t wait to see what the humans did with nanotechnology.) And in the same way that a freezer was a wonderful tool with which to preserve chocolate ice cream at the optimal temperature, humans had created more esoteric artifacts. John just needed to find the right tool for the job — or the right artifact for the spell.

Sherlock hadn’t changed either, despite the revelation of John’s wings. He still expected John to fetch him tea and clean up his messes and pick up the groceries. He still complained when he threw a white shirt into the washing machine without checking it first and ended up with a light pink or blue shirt in the end. He still draped himself over the sofa like a Victorian-era heroine (at some point in John Watson’s life, he’d read two Regency romances, which had engraved certain impressions in his memory) and sighed a lot when he was bored.

Two weeks after the Day of Wings, John interrupted another fit of boredom and told Sherlock, “Get up. Get dressed.”

Sherlock didn’t move from his sprawl. He didn’t even move the arm that was flung dramatically over his eyes. “London is _boring_.”

“We’re going to change that.”

Sherlock’s arm moved enough to reveal one blue eye.

John smiled. “We’re going to break into the British Museum.”

Excitement blazed through Sherlock’s eyes as he sat up. “Really?”

“Absolutely.”

Sherlock leaped off the sofa and went to find clothing, flinging his dressing gown and T-shirt away in his wake. Not once did he pause to ask why.

 

~~~

 

The taxi let them off several blocks away from the museum. John paid — the excursion was his idea, after all — and followed Sherlock out into the rain. Sherlock was wrapped up in his coat and scarf as always, and John felt a twinge of guilt at how cold he had to be feeling. John didn’t feel the cold unless he chose to, and even then, it stopped as soon as his concentration slipped.

“We need to disappear from CCTV,” John said, falling into his natural place at Sherlock’s side. “Unless you want Mycroft asking about this little trip.” If John ever decided to take up crime as a profession and not a one-night hobby driven by necessity, he’d definitely want Sherlock at his side. The man had almost every CCTV location in London memorized.

Sherlock smirked, smug pride almost radiating from him in waves. He paused, eyes fluttering closed for three seconds — certainly far too short for most people to even orient themselves on a map, but Sherlock wasn’t ‘most people’. For him, three seconds of thought was an eternity.

Maybe that was why they got along so well. They could both distance themselves from human perception of time.

Then they were off, John following Sherlock into the streets, crossing where he did, ducking into alleys and through carparks, until they were in sight of their goal. “Good enough,” John said, releasing his tight hold on himself and spreading his wings just a little, enough that he could spread them invisibly behind Sherlock’s back.

Invisibly, but apparently not intangibly. Sherlock went stiff, twisting to look for whatever had just pressed through his coat and shirt and even skin, a touch that he could only have felt on his soul. Startled, John nearly lost his hold of his wings, which would have resulted in the loss of a very comfortable jacket and an ugly button-down shirt washed to fluffy softness, but he managed to restrain himself in time.

Sherlock still tried to locate the source of whatever he’d felt. “What’s —”

“My wings. They’ll hide us from sight.”

Sherlock studied John’s face instead as though trying to pick through his thoughts. “There’s more security than just cameras and security guards.”

Startled, John asked, “What?”

“Infrared, motion detection, air pressure sensors, pressure plates —”

“You —” John cut himself off and shook his head. “You’re not wondering how? Invisibility —”

“Oh, sorry. Is this the part where I’m supposed to say ‘that’s impossible’? _To my demon?_ ”

“Any other — _Your_ demon?”

Sherlock shrugged evasively, looking aside, and there was a momentary hesitation before he said, “There _are_ others, aren’t they? How else should I designate you? I can’t quite believe that a creature born at the ‘beginning of the universe’” — John could actually hear him pronounce the quotes — “was born named John Hamish Watson.”

“You couldn’t pronounce my True Name.”

Another smirk flashed to life, bold and fearless, tugging at something deep inside John. “So that story’s true as well,” he said smugly.

“You’re _impossible,_ ” John muttered, taking hold of Sherlock’s arm. “Apparently you’re able to feel my wings, so don’t be surprised. Don’t pull away. If you go out of range of my wings, you’ll shift back.”

“Shift?”

“Back into phase with the world,” John said, pressing feathers against Sherlock once more before he _pushed_ against reality.

 

~~~

 

‘Reality’ was, as a concept, a flexible sort of thing. Humans were just now scratching at the edges of truths they would never fully understand simply because they didn’t have the ability to measure the full scope of reality. They were only now understanding, in the most theoretical way, that sometimes a particle was a wave and sometimes a wave was a particle, that the vibration of strings was a fundamental building block of the universe, and that everything influenced everything else. It was beautiful, this understanding, because humans were so very limited, and yet able to push their minds so far.

Very much like Sherlock.

He would have made an incredible physicist. Not that anyone in their right mind would trust him with that much cryogenic xenon or a particle accelerator. Even a laser was right out of the question. So no, _not_ a physicist.

The shift in reality was subtle, washing out the night’s colors in a haze of bluish-grey. The ground underfoot was just a bit resilient, like walking on a thin mat, and the air felt thick but extremely dry. For John, the effort was akin to a body straining to carry a medium weight — sustainable at first, but fatiguing if maintained for too long.

Lacking any sort of skeletal structure, John’s wings circled them both completely, and in more dimensions than just the physical ones. His feathers protected them from the intrusion of reality, and with concentration, he could shift the properties of those feathers and keep from falling through the sidewalk or getting pushed away from earth by the velocity of its spin. Or was that its centripetal force? Neither he nor the real John Watson had ever actually taken more than basic physics, and though he knew the concepts, he lacked the proper human words for them.

They walked comfortably side-by-side despite Sherlock’s longer strides, the last year having attuned them to one another’s movements. Sherlock’s arm pressed the back of John’s hand against his body. John was going to have to do something about the way he could feel Sherlock’s ribs under his skin, even through the layers of thick wool and combed silk.

Sherlock only broke step with John at the stairs leading up to the Grecian façade that housed one of the museum’s main entrances. John held tight to Sherlock’s arm and pulled him aside, away from the doors. While they were phased out of sync with reality, sound didn’t travel properly. He wished he’d thought to explain all the details before, but then he’d got caught up in the excitement that he might just have a plan, and then here they were.

At the top of the stairs, he freed his hand from Sherlock’s grasp, wrapped his arm around Sherlock’s waist, and pulled him close, using inhuman strength to make Sherlock stumble. At that instant, when he was off balance, John rushed forward, right at the wall of the building —

— And through the wall to the other side, falling and tripping and skittering before John got his feathers straightened out and realigned their feet with the floor. Sherlock twisted in John’s grasp, looking back at the wall, wild-eyed, and John felt a twinge of guilt. He should have explained what he was doing, but he didn’t have the human terms to help Sherlock fully understand, and he hadn’t wanted to waste half the night arguing.

So he stayed still, letting Sherlock come to grips with the fact that they’d just passed _through_ a wall, and hoped it wouldn’t take too long. Sherlock closed his eyes, taking deep, steady breaths, letting John hold him steady until some of the tension finally left him. Then, with one last deep breath, he drew back enough to give John a slight nod.

John silently mouthed _sorry_ and let go of him, taking his arm instead. Drawing on memories of a school trip to the museum, he looked around until he found a locked door that hopefully would get them to the basement. He brought Sherlock to the door and gave his arm a warning squeeze.

After another breath, Sherlock nodded, and John took them both through.

 

~~~

 

When John was paying attention, he was sensitive to objects imbued with power. He’d tracked down Sherlock’s little vial of holy oil (bought off eBay, of all things) by its resonance, attuned as it was to the energy of Heaven. As they entered the storage rooms beneath the museum, he extended his senses in a way similar to a human squinting to look off into the distance or a hunting cat tasting the air for any sign of prey. His research had mentioned the British Museum as the most likely place to find _something_ of sufficient power and strength that he could use or adapt it for his needs.

Immediately, he recognized two dozen artifacts of power from all different faiths, most of them minor. He needed something that would interact with both the energy of Hell and Earth, preferably without exploding or shattering the barrier between the planes or something equally inconvenient. The last thing he needed was to damage the universe.

With unusual patience, Sherlock waited beside him, looking around for just a moment before he turned his study to John’s face. The blue-grey haze that filled the shifted world around them gave Sherlock an unhealthy, corpselike pallor. As soon as John focused on him, the analogy came to mind, and he felt power crackle through his wings in a threat display that no one could see but that he couldn’t quash.

He huffed in irritation, held Sherlock’s arm possessively close, and started towards the artifact he’d chosen, walking in a direct line through walls and shelves and storage racks and an office. Electrical lines tingled; copper plumbing felt cold; data cables and fiber optics felt sharp, like thread pulled taut. One day, he’d consider studying it, maybe even discussing it with Sherlock. For now, though, he stayed on mission.

Finally they reached the right storage room, the right shelf, and when John stopped in front of the artifact — whatever it was — he could definitely feel it ringing against his other-senses like the sound of a finger dragged along the rim of a glass. He looked around, but they seemed to be alone, so he shifted his wings, parting the feathers enough to let them phase back into reality. He kept his wings high, vibrating into the visible spectrum to blur their faces for the sake of any security cameras that might be pointed their way. Just because he didn’t see any didn’t mean they weren’t there.

“Get that crate,” he told Sherlock.

“But —”

“Get it!”

Sherlock didn’t hesitate — stealing an ancient artifact from a prestigious museum was insignificant to him. He snatched up the crate and John’s wings went around him, hiding them both from sight once more.

Step one, complete.


	5. Chapter 5

The rest was easy by comparison, though surely less fun, at least for Sherlock. Once they were a safe distance from the museum, John took the crate and said, “Find us somewhere private but large. One of your brother’s warehouses, only without the CCTV.”

“Large enough for...” Sherlock trailed off significantly, looking over John’s shoulder.

John nodded.

Sherlock smiled intently and went looking for a taxi. John set a part of his mind to follow Sherlock’s lead and turned the rest of his attention to the contents of the box.

Its energy felt familiar; one of his brethren had been involved in the making of this artifact or had held it at some point for long enough to leave behind an imprint. He couldn’t identify specifically _which_ of his kin, but that hardly mattered. Maybe one day he’d seek them out — there were others from both sides of the War, living peacefully among humans, preferring to hold themselves absent from the ongoing conflict. For now, John was content with the life he’d built here in London. Sherlock was _infinitely_ more interesting than any demon or angel.

The taxi dropped them in a warehouse district, and Sherlock led John three blocks to a boarded-up building covered in graffiti. John felt a touch of alarm at that — graffiti usually meant humans used the building — but Sherlock, perhaps sensing his worry, said, “They were all arrested more than a week ago. No one’s yet ready to challenge their territory and trespass.”

“Lovely. If you get me involved in a gang war, I’m not speaking with you,” John threatened absently. He hadn’t brought his gun, but really, there was no point. If he took out his gun, it meant he’d already decided to use it, and he had much easier ways to end a human life, now that Sherlock knew the truth.

Sherlock just smirked and brought John around back, down an alley, and up through a broken window. For a human, Sherlock was more than half-cat, climbing with far more grace than should have been possible for a man his height. Helpfully, Sherlock had a small torch out, and he used it to illuminate a clear patch of floor. It wasn’t necessary — John didn’t need light to see — but he appreciated the human courtesy.

John dropped down into the warehouse beside him and quietly asked, “Is the upper level safe? I’d rather not have anyone look through the window.”

With a put-upon sigh, Sherlock said, “Yes. Are you always this overcautious?”

“If I’m doing _this?_ Yes,” John answered, and went to find the stairs.

Not that the upper level of the warehouse made him feel any better about the location. There was still police tape, and he could smell the blood and death. He gritted his teeth and folded his wings tight to his back, thinking he could use this. Symbolically, it was all wrong, but power was power, and he was more interested in being practical than flashy. Besides, he was dealing with Sherlock, not some fainting Victorian lady, despite all evidence to the contrary when Sherlock was bored.

He certainly wasn’t bored now.

John set the box down and unzipped his jacket, shaking it to get rid of the worst of the rain. “Might as well get comfortable,” he told Sherlock as he tossed the jacket aside. It landed on the dirty floor, but it wasn’t as if there was a clean wardrobe at hand. At least Sherlock could recommend a good dry cleaner.

“How did we pass through the walls?” Sherlock asked, pacing around the warehouse. He gave the bloodstains only a few passing glances.

“Matter isn’t solid. All the... bits that make up matter are mostly empty space. All we had to do was shift to become... um... waves instead of particles. You know about light, don’t you?” he asked, glancing at Sherlock.

He got a flat glare in response, which could mean anything.

He sighed. “Most of the time, this is matter” — he held up his left hand, fingers spread — “and this is us” — he held up his right hand, fingers spread at an angle to his left hand. He brought them together with a clapping sound. “One can’t pass through the other. But if you shift...” He turned his hands so his fingers were basically parallel and passed them smoothly ‘through’ each other.

Sherlock’s eyes lit up before he narrowed them in thought. “But it wasn’t only matter. We couldn’t be seen by the cameras or the guard.”

“There was a guard?”

Sherlock smirked, smug bastard that he was. “Of course there was. Didn’t you see him?”

John laughed and started taking off his shirt. “Too stupid, can’t observe, et cetera, remember?”

“Yes, though you do have other virtues that almost make up for it.” He gave up his examination of the bloodstains and headed for the crate. “You haven’t explained how we went unseen.”

“The same way we passed through matter. We just turned... sideways to the light, too. And to all forms of radiation, including thermal.”

“And we didn’t fall through the floor.”

“It’s a matter of selective field manipulation. We could also breathe, if you’ll notice, so I managed the air pressure and oxygen content without a problem. I _can_ remember some details,” John said smugly, untucking the tails of his shirt from his jeans. He set the shirt more carefully over his jacket, trying to keep it from getting too dirty.

This time, it was easier for him to spread his wings, though he carefully kept a bit of distance from Sherlock in case he felt like pawing at them again. The idea was a little too appealing for John’s liking; he wasn’t exactly comfortable with _anything_ that shut his entire brain down like that.

As soon as the sound of feathers snapped through the air, Sherlock’s head came up. He forgot all about the box and started forward, eyes fixed on John’s wings. Sherlock’s torch was still the brightest source of light, but the faint glow of John’s wings was enough that Sherlock didn’t bother aiming the torch his way.

“Just a moment,” John said, folding his wings back. Unlike the medieval statues, they didn’t tuck neatly out of sight, but he managed to get them back, crossed about halfway up. The tips of his primaries dragged on the floor, making him grimace at the thought of ever getting the feathers clean again, but he’d deal with that later. “Open the box.”

The lure of seeing what they’d stolen was almost insufficient to distract Sherlock from John’s wings. Finally, though, he aimed the torch at the crate and crouched down beside it. The lid wasn’t securely nailed down — it probably wasn’t worth the bother, if the piece was frequently removed for study or display — so Sherlock flipped it aside and reached in, pulling out a string of air pillows used to cushion fragile items during shipping.

Finally, he removed a white, unglazed clay jug, the neck gracefully narrow and tipped up to form a pouring spout. The handle was a thin arc connecting the top of the spout to the perfectly spherical bowl of the jug.

To human eyes, the jug looked unfinished. Without glazing, the clay would be too porous to hold liquid properly — at least liquid as humans knew it. “Perfect,” John said softly. “All right. Leave it on the floor. Carefully. If it breaks, we’ll probably get stuck making one ourselves, and I don’t know how to do pottery.”

“I do, theoretically,” Sherlock said as he set the jug back into the crate. “I’ve never had an interest in trying. It seems too... summer camp.”

It took a moment for John to search his borrowed memories for the reference. Then he snorted. “Thanks for the mental image of you terrorizing a whole generation of camp counselors. Come here.”

Sherlock smirked and walked over, having a difficult time keeping his eyes off John’s wings. “Mycroft. Swimming lessons.”

John shuddered visibly. “Make this more difficult for me, why don’t you?” He took a deep breath and looked up at Sherlock, finally tapping his jaw to get his attention back. “You have a habit of trying to get yourself killed — both of us, actually, but it would take significantly more than most humans could manage to actually kill me. And no, we’re not getting into that discussion now.”

Sherlock sighed. “Just tell me what this ritual is supposed to accomplish.”

“I — Who said —”

“Open, private space. The theft of some ancient item of enough significance that you sniffed it out in the middle of a museum full of far more valuable and visually impressive treasures. Or was this your excuse to get me alone so you could show off your wings again?”

John wasn’t blushing. He _was not_. And if he was, Sherlock wouldn’t be able to see it because it was too bloody dark and his wings cast odd shadows.

Vehemently thinking some of John’s more favored human swear-words, he said, “It’s to give you a measure of my power — maybe even enough that you won’t kill yourself with your terrible diet and your nicotine habit.”

Sherlock’s eyes slid sideways. “Wings?”

“Oh, bloody hell, no,” John said, horrified at the sheer destructive power of Sherlock with a demon’s wings. “One feather’s more than enough.”

Sherlock stared down at him, his gaze calculating, though he kept flicking glances at John’s feathers. Finally he said, “Very well. Where do we start?”

In answer, John lifted his hand and flattened his palm against Sherlock’s cheek, closing his eyes to block out his human senses as he considered Sherlock’s physiology. John was making this up as he went, and though the theory was sound, he didn’t want to take any chances. He didn't want to make Sherlock’s left arm invulnerable and leave the rest of him to die of malnutrition or something.

Finally he pulled his hand back and said, “Your spine. Turn around and take off your shirt.”

The quality of Sherlock’s expression — the way he was staring at John — subtly changed, but John only had an instant to study it before Sherlock turned his back and started taking off his coat. He set his curiosity aside to analyze later. It was freezing in the warehouse, and the last thing he needed was Sherlock taking ill from exposure. The very idea of Sherlock with a cold was enough to make John wonder if the boredom of Hell was really that bad. There was such a thing as too much excitement, after all.

While Sherlock worked on undressing, John twisted around so he could reach his left wingtip. This was one situation where overkill would work in his favor, he hoped, so he took hold of the longest primary and pulled it free. It twinged painfully and the world seemed to wobble around him for a moment as he tried to adjust to the fact that a part of him — a part of his _self_ — was now separate from the rest.

(That was why combat damage was so devastating, and why most of his kind excised any damage so they could repair. For angels and demons alike, wings were a reflection of health and state of mind.)

He maintained his energy-connection to the feather, refusing to allow it to dissipate. So long as he kept feeding it power, that primary would never regrow in his wing but would instead remain wherever he fixed it. Theoretically.

This was too much theory and not enough fact, and he felt the first stirrings of nervousness as he considered what he was about to do. Sherlock was _one human_. What was so important that John would deliberately weaken himself like this, just to _keep_ him?

_My demon._

Fine, then. If he was Sherlock’s demon, then Sherlock could bloody well be John’s human. So there was no sense in being nervous about any of this.

“I really need to feed you more,” John said critically when Sherlock turned back around, having set aside his coat and shirt (folded neatly on top of John’s coat, of course). “Bring the artifact over.”

Sherlock removed the jug from the crate, his shoulderblade pressing dangerously against too-thin flesh. He was attractive — _very_ attractive, John realized, wondering when that had happened — but he’d be even more attractive once he was healthier. At least he was all muscle. For all his lounging about, he did work out, however unintentionally. Running blindly through London did that to a bloke.

John switched the feather to his left hand (his host’s dominant hand) and took the jug with his right. He relaxed the tight hold on his wings, spreading his feathers comfortably, filling the area with gentle illumination. Sherlock’s eyes went right back to their study of his wings again, but that was all right.

“Don’t touch,” he warned, and lifted the jug as he inhaled deeply.

Then he exhaled, breathing not air but power into the jug. It hummed softly, like a power transformer warming up (or like their microwave did after the second time Sherlock took it apart and rebuilt it). The unglazed ceramic absorbed the vibration of that energy, vibration that would have shattered any other material, even the hardest titanium or diamond.

The exhale went on far longer than human lungs could provide, but John didn’t stop until power filled the ceramic completely. This wasn’t the time to be stingy with his energy.

Sherlock was staring into the jug, but his human eyes probably couldn’t see anything. When John finished, he looked up curiously and started to ask, “What —”

“I’ll explain later. Turn around,” John said quickly. He didn’t think much of his power would escape, but holding the jug was like holding a live bomb, only one that could hurt him as well as the building — and possibly much of London. Too much power concentrated in too small a space.

As soon as Sherlock turned, John lined up the feather with his spine. The tip of the feather pressed up against his hair, and the quill reached down past his waistline. With no hands free, he tried to work the quill between Sherlock’s skin and his trousers, making Sherlock flinch when the sharp end stabbed him.

“Sorry. Just — There, help with that,” he said as Sherlock shifted and reached back, tugging his belt and trousers a quarter-inch from his skin. He twisted to look over his shoulder as if he could see what John was doing, and John smacked the back of his head with the feather. “Now hold still...”

Carefully, he fed the sharp end of the quill beneath the waistband of what were, knowing Sherlock, silk pants rather than anything so pedestrian as cotton. It took some work, but he finally fitted the feather along the entire length of Sherlock’s spine and up onto his skull.

“This is... awkward,” Sherlock said tensely, his back muscles held stiff, probably from fighting the desire to turn and watch what John was doing.

“No wonder why you don’t date. No spirit of adventure,” John said, flattening his hand between Sherlock’s shoulderblades.

“This isn’t a _‘date’,_ ” Sherlock said, though he didn’t sound all that certain.

John laughed, carefully raising the jug. “Two people go out, have fun... Since when do you not find trespassing and burglary fun?” he asked, setting the spout against the feather right above his fingers. Gently, he tipped it up just a few degrees, enough that the power began to flow.

If Sherlock had any sort of answer, it was lost in his sudden gasp. His back arched before he stopped himself, fists clenching. Guiltily, John said, “Sorry. Just a few minutes. It’s not _supposed_ to hurt. I don’t think. I’m not sure anyone’s ever actually done this.”

“It’s — It’s fine,” Sherlock said breathlessly, as though speaking were some great effort.

John just mentally said a few choice swear-words and tried to hurry, though he was careful to keep the quill precisely aligned to the centerline of Sherlock’s spine. The flowing power dulled the feather’s illumination, turning it from a pale radiance to a soft, reddish glow that went dark as the feather sank beneath Sherlock’s skin. With a bit of concentration, John could see the feather where it dipped into Sherlock’s body, barbs curving around his spine, quill threaded through nerves that shifted around it, weaving it into place.

Relieved that the makeshift ritual was working, John continued to smooth the power down the length of the feather. Realizing that Sherlock’s clothing was going to cause a problem, he tipped the jug back upright and said, “Belt, trousers, pants.”

Sherlock hesitated.

“Sherlock, please.”

With tight, jerky movements, Sherlock unfastened his belt enough that he could push his clothing down out of the way. John tried not to think about what this was like for him — a human — and reminded himself of Sherlock’s vehement denials of his own sexuality. And because he, like all demons, was cursed with perfect recall, he remembered what Dr. Thompson had asked about _his_ sexuality.

All of which served to distract him enough that he closed his eyes and worked instead by feel, sinking the feather against Sherlock’s spine and not _at all_ thinking about the fact that they were both essentially human (or at least that while he was something else, now Sherlock was, too, which was even better).

He couldn’t help but sigh with relief as his fingers traced over the very base of Sherlock’s spine, and at what point had he spread his legs enough for John to actually reach that far down anyway? _Not helping,_ John told himself, and focused intently on the other end of the feather, saying, “You can — Pants,” which really wasn’t helpful, though it was apparently descriptive enough to prompt Sherlock to pull his trousers back up.

Shame, that.

_No._

Swearing at himself even more, John pressed the feather up over the crest of Sherlock’s back, along the nape of his neck, and into his skull, where the barbs smoothed seamlessly through the membrane surrounding his brain. John let out a sigh as he felt his power sink into place, settling into Sherlock’s body as if it had always been there. The aching emptiness in his wing subsided into a background awareness that his feather was still _his_ , even if it was elsewhere.

He poured the last of the energy out of the ceramic jug and then stepped away, safely out of arm’s reach of Sherlock, who shivered and rubbed a hand over the back of his head, ruffling his hair. John set the jug down on the concrete warehouse floor, taking a couple of deep breaths to steady himself back into his borrowed physical form.

“You all right?” he asked when he could finally speak again.

Sherlock’s nod was a bit hesitant at first. “Fine. What...” He turned to look back at John, his eyes tracking over to the uneven row of long primary feathers at the tip of his wing. “You —”

John nodded, tucking his wings back before he let them fade out from sight. If the rumpled condition of his feathers wasn’t bad enough, now the count was uneven. One more thing to be self-conscious about.

“How do you feel?” he asked, going to the pile of clothing. “You should get dressed.”

“It — Fine,” Sherlock repeated unhelpfully. “It was... good.”

“‘Good’,” John repeated, picking up Sherlock’s shirt and coat. He offered him the shirt. “Well. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Are you — You —” Sherlock closed his mouth, lips pressed tightly, and tugged the shirt into place. He didn’t turn his back, but he might as well have done, the way he went all closed and introverted.

John sighed, draped the long coat over his arm, and picked up his own shirt. “That feather isn’t an excuse to go doing anything even more unusually stupid, like jumping off buildings. Any damage you do to yourself will still happen. It just won’t kill you, but you’ll need to explain it to any medical professionals.”

“You’re my doctor.”

“Wonderful. At least I’ll never be unemployed,” John said, and offered Sherlock the coat.

As he took the coat and put it on (with his usual dramatic swirl), he pointed the torch in the direction of the jug and asked, “What about that?”

John pulled on his shirt, didn’t bother buttoning it up, and tugged on his jacket over it. “I’ll deal with it. It has my power — sort of my DNA. I don’t want anyone getting hold of it.”

“Does that mean I do as well?”

“Yes, so do try not to get kidnapped by any demons. Or angels, for that matter.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. How are you wearing your shirt?”

John looked back over his shoulder as he stopped beside the jug. “Sorry?”

“Your shirt! How are you wearing your shirt? You had to take it off before,” Sherlock snapped. When John didn’t answer immediately, he insisted, “Your _wings,_ John!”

“What about them?”

“I can —”

He stopped, his eyes going wide. He crossed the distance between them in three quick steps, reaching up into the air _precisely_ where John’s wing would have been, had he manifested it physically. His fingers passed through the feathers that weren’t there.

“You can still see my wings,” John said quietly. Irrational as it was, he snatched the torch out of Sherlock’s hand and aimed it right at his eye, making him recoil in surprise as the direct light constricted his pupil with violent force. “No belladonna?” he demanded.

“No! No reflective surfaces, either, you’ll notice,” Sherlock snapped petulantly. He took the torch back, blinking furiously. “It’s different. I can see them, but not clearly.”

That was potentially worrying, but not something John could fix. “I’m currently _hiding_ them — even I can’t ‘see’ them. The fact that you can might have to do with the fact it’s my feather you’re carrying, or it...” He shrugged and picked up the ceramic jug. “I don’t know. It could be useful if you can see others.”

“Others. Are there others here, in London?”

John shrugged. “I can’t see why there wouldn’t be. It’s a nice enough city, as cities go, even if the weather’s rubbish. If you do see one, you _tell me_. Don’t go poking at it with a stick, understand?”

Sherlock sniffed haughtily.

“I know you, Sherlock. Yes, you _would_ do just that.”

Rather than agreeing, Sherlock asked, “Do you see anything different about me?”

“I see an obnoxious know-it-all who needs a good crack on the ear with a wing,” John threatened.

Sherlock grinned like a cat. “Go ahead. You’ll have to bring them out again, and I’m not done looking yet.”

John wasn’t blushing. Again. He told himself firmly that he was not blushing, and instead said, “Go wait for me outside. This might be explosive.”

Instead of leaving like a sensible person would, Sherlock stepped closer. “What are you doing?”

“Sherlock. I’ll answer all your questions later. For now, please. Wait outside.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Sherlock actually left, and John breathed out a relieved sigh. Resisting the urge to manifest his wings and do an emergency combing of what feathers he could reach, he instead circled his wings around himself and the jug, thinking it the best way to contain the destruction he might well unleash.


	6. Chapter 6

Humans, John thought, had created a wonderful, beautiful world. A world of cities and lives and cultures, a world of books and music, a world of sandwiches and chocolate and hot running water in the form of a blissful, soothing shower to wash away the grime of the warehouse and the minuscule particles of ceramic that powdered his skin and hair, making him feel — and look — like he’d been in a fight with a flour mill. On the losing end.

Sherlock had spent the entire taxi ride looking sidelong at John’s wing. Oh, he’d been turned to face out the window, but that didn’t fool John, whose wings were spread well beyond the boundary of the car. And naturally Sherlock sat to John’s left, meaning he was staring at the _incomplete_ wing, the one whose matching feather was now entwined around Sherlock’s spine and threaded into his central nervous system.

Talk about making John feel bloody self-conscious.

John turned his face into the shower spray and slicked his hair back, reveling in the way the water droplets broke against his skin, reforming into smaller droplets, merging with others into hot streams. The temperature exchange, body heat to hot water to steamy air, still fascinated him after more than a year and a half of living in a physical reality, and unless he was careful, he tended to take such long showers that the hot water pipes would groan and the ancient water heater would finally give up the fight, dousing him with ice cold water instead.

The bathroom door opened, which was nothing new, since Sherlock had no sense of privacy or personal space at all. “Don’t you dare flush,” John warned as he always did. He’d learned that a preemptive attack was better than expecting an apology after the fact. Hopefully, Sherlock was just looking to brush his teeth or find a plaster or something (though that, of course, would end up with John getting out of the shower early to see if he’d cut himself and needed more medical care than a bandage haphazardly slapped on).

When the shower curtain opened a moment later, John just sighed and asked, “What’d you do this —”

The answer was all too obvious, though. He hadn’t done anything, at least not anything requiring emergency medical care. He _had,_ however, stripped off his clothes.

Sherlock stepped over the lip of the bathtub and John stepped back, automatically making room before he demanded, “Sherlock! What the hell are you doing?”

“You’re _staying,_ ” Sherlock said, pulling the shower curtain closed.

“Well, _now_ I’m not.” John tried to get around Sherlock and switch places, but Sherlock refused to move. “If you didn’t want to wait, you could’ve said so.”

With a frustrated huff, Sherlock repeated, “You’re staying. Here. With me.” He crowded closer, rather than getting out of the way.

“Oh,” John said quietly, catching Sherlock by the shoulders. True, the ritual with the feather was a rather blunt declaration of his intent to keep Sherlock with him at all costs. “Yes. I’m staying, and I’d like you to not kill yourself in the process, which is why... all this, tonight. You don’t have to thank me. Gratitude isn’t exactly your thing, anyway,” he added with a little smirk.

“I don’t need to thank you,” Sherlock said, oblivious to the irony of the whole situation. “Your motives were selfish, which is why the act was _meaningful_.”

After a moment that was, as always, devoid of any sort of useful explanation, John said, “Stupid, remember? Fill in the parts I’ve missed.”

“You don’t want to leave. You don’t want to be rid of me, even in a convenient accident for which you wouldn’t have to take any blame. You didn’t do this out of a sense of responsibility. It was _only_ selfish.”

“Considering it was that or lock you in the attic — and you’d still find a way to get yourself chased by angry criminals —”

Sherlock grinned down at him. “Precisely! See? You _do_ understand. You just have to remember to actually _think_.”

“Fine. Thank you. Yes, I do understand. The only part I’m missing is the part where it’s appropriate for you to explain this to me in the shower,” John prompted.

“I don’t have ‘friends’,” Sherlock said contemptuously, not for the first time. “No one’s ever stayed more than a month.”

“We’ve been through this,” John said, backing up all the way under the shower spray.

Undeterred, Sherlock kept crowding towards him. “You said you’re not gay. You have a reputation with women — your friends speak of it. But you don’t date the same woman for more than a few weeks. You spend more time on their sofas than in their beds.”

“First, that’s not _my_ reputation,” John pointed out. “Demon, remember? I don’t particularly have any interest in dating anyone.”

Sherlock sniffed, amused. He tossed his head, throwing his wet hair back out of his eyes, and flattened his palms against the wall to either side of John’s head. “I touched your wings.”

Four simple words, and John entirely forgot that a human body operates best with regular breathing.

“The other night, I wasn’t certain,” Sherlock continued. “Now, I am.”

“Certain,” John repeated, finding enough breath to actually speak. One word was easy, so he tried for another: “About?”

Sherlock’s elbows flexed, bringing him closer, close enough to share the breath that John currently was struggling to actually breathe, closer still, until Sherlock’s breath ghosted over John’s ear setting off human reactions that he’d previously simulated, with fair success, with the string of girlfriends that he’d collected because that’s what humans did.

“You enjoyed it,” Sherlock said quietly.

And then, as if that weren’t bad enough, he added, “So did I.”

 

~~~

 

Kissing was nothing new to John — at least, not since a year ago. Before then, yes, but not since. And while he _started_ to automatically catalogue the differences, Sherlock had abandoned the rules of scientific experiments to instead cheat.

“I want to see them again,” Sherlock whispered, not stopping his exploration of John’s throat before he went back to kissing him breathless. His “please” was understandable, even muffled as it was.

As if John had the power in him to refuse _anything_ in this state? Definitely cheating.

Before he could think of any sort of real answer, Sherlock switched places with him and steered him back with one hand, pulling the shower curtain open with the other. The rational part of John’s mind wanted to point out that Sherlock hadn’t actually showered — hadn’t even touched the soap — but Sherlock pushed him out and then followed, so John was just fine with that, as long as he wasn’t alone in leaving the shower.

“We’re not — not going back to the warehouse,” John insisted, getting a grip on Sherlock’s hair so he could draw back enough to speak. He tried to look stern and probably failed miserably. The intensity Sherlock brought to crime scenes and interrogations was overwhelming here, in this tiny bathroom. John could almost feel pity for the criminals he chased. No wonder the man didn’t date, if he expected his partners to endure this sort of intensity.

“My room,” Sherlock said, unaware of the thoughts that raced through John’s mind between one breath and the next. “Nothing to break.”

_Walls,_ John thought, though that wasn’t much of a consideration at the moment. He didn’t bother to dry off, figuring the air could do a good enough job of that, and went right through the bedroom door. He’d generally tried to respect Sherlock’s privacy and rarely ventured into the room, though he noticed the differences immediately. Sherlock had moved anything either fragile or breakable to the far side of the room, even going so far as to shove the dresser that way. The framed judo certificate and periodic table were both missing, possibly relocated to the living room, leaving the bed as a blatantly inviting, clear island.

“Sherlock,” John asked, trying for a bit of rational thought. “Have you ever done... this?”

Sherlock gave him a disappointed look. “Yes. Of course I have.”

“With a man?”

“Obviously, John. And even if I hadn’t —”

“With a _demon?_ ”

Sherlock snapped his mouth shut and glared. It would have been intimidating without the hair dripping into his eyes or the way he was shivering.

John swore (terribly useful vocabulary, that) and snatched at the duvet, thinking to cover Sherlock, who blocked it with a raised arm. The duvet hit the floor and Sherlock stepped on it, over it, invading John’s personal space as he so often did. “Your wings, John. Much better than a blanket.”

“They’re not —” But he cut off, realizing he had no idea what his feathers had felt like from Sherlock’s point of view. He’d never even thought of it, assuming they felt like... well, like feathers. Sharp quill, barbs soft in one direction, resistant in the other. More flexible downy quills and softer barbs. Harder primaries, barbs interlocked and stiff.

Sherlock took John by the shoulders and turned him around, snaking his arms around John’s body. His skin was wet ice. “John,” he growled, and bit the back of his neck much harder than any of John’s girlfriends had ever tried.

He let himself sink into the physical sensation, because it was far nicer than he’d expected, and he folded his arms over Sherlock’s, twining their fingers together. Then, carefully, he spread his unseen, insubstantial right wing and extended the left until it was close to the wall, but not close enough to touch, and he made certain the feathers were as flat as they could be, though Sherlock had stopped biting and his tongue was moving, and John had to say, “Stop. Just — just for a minute.”

Instead of backing away, Sherlock’s hold tightened before he said, “You could make them become solid, even if there was no room for them.”

“And break whatever was in the way, yes.”

Sherlock stepped back, and John shivered, his back going momentarily cold. When it was safe, he let his wings appear, trying to stay conscious of the room’s boundaries. Mrs. Hudson _would_ find a way to kill them both if he broke the flat.

“I’ve been reading,” Sherlock said, wet feet loud on the floor as he came closer again, now that it was safe. Somewhat safe. Safe by their standards, at any rate. When he put a single fingertip on John’s very human skin, at the nape of his neck, John nearly squeaked in surprise. He’d been braced for a touch on his wings, not skin.

“You always read,” he managed to say, though the last word was clipped by a gasp as Sherlock dragged his fingertip down John’s spine, pausing right between the twin lines of feathers that lay flat against his skin.

“Your feathers aren’t quite like a bird’s, but not so different.” Sherlock’s hand slid to the right, just brushing along the barbs of one feather. Little shocks of sensation crackled along John’s spine, and his eyes fell closed. “Scapulars, the flat feathers that cover the wing joint, providing a smooth transition to your back.”

He moved his finger away, and for a moment, John’s head cleared. He took a breath and came up with an appropriate answer that shattered into a gasp as two hands flattened on his feathers, brushing smoothly down the scapulars, fingers trailing between the barbs. Had it been anyone else, John might have been able to imagine that the drag of thumbs to either side of his spine was accidental, but this was Sherlock. He didn’t do ‘accidental’.

The scapulars ended at John’s waist, the trailing edges just brushing over his kidneys, following the curve of his lower back. Sherlock dragged his fingers further down onto skin, moving another inch, two, the touch helping John ground himself back into his very human, surprisingly over-sensitive body.

“Right,” he said, remembering Sherlock had said something clever about his feathers. “They’re — _ngnh,_ ” he finished eloquently as Sherlock’s long, talented fingers curved over the leading edges of both wings. He almost didn’t notice the way Sherlock’s body pressed against his.

Very softly, Sherlock whispered, “Coverts cover and protect other feathers.”

“Sherlock,” John grated out. He was _not_ going to survive a detailed examination of every damned feather in his wings.

Sherlock’s laugh was low and knowing and too full of confidence for John’s sense of wellbeing. “Move up,” he said, giving John a little push.

John’s knees hit the mattress and he caught himself from falling, palms flat on the bed. His left wingtip, incomplete as the primaries were, smacked into the wall with a heavy thump. He pushed back upright, legs braced against the bed, just as Sherlock’s hands went flat on the long tertials that extended down right next to his legs, and John’s whole body seemed to catch fire. “Wait,” he gasped out.

Sherlock made a sound that might’ve been meant to be comforting; at least, it didn’t sound too irritated. He stopped directly touching John’s feathers and slid his arms under the tertials to circle John’s body, holding him close, and while the press of his body against feathers was _almost_ too much, Sherlock’s embrace was comforting and not overwhelming, or not _just_ overwhelming.

Slowly, John relaxed back against him, letting his head fall back against a too-sharp collarbone. Sherlock pressed a kiss to his temple and just held him, softly asking, “Is this too much?”

“No.” John shook his head just a little, enough to feel the drag of his wet hair against Sherlock’s skin. “You’re too cold. Didn’t dry off,” he remembered to say.

“Keep me warm,” Sherlock insisted, getting even closer, until they were pressed together from knees to hips, chest to back.

Carefully, John pulled his wings back until the feathers brushed against Sherlock’s arms and sides. Without the restrictions of physical anatomy under the feathers, John could curve them all the way around Sherlock if he chose, but even the thought of that much contact was too much right now.

This was enough, though, by the way Sherlock’s exhale stuttered and caught. His arms went tight and he pressed his face against John’s neck, dropping a soft kiss there. “It feels like _light,_ ” he whispered. “Like a sun that can’t burn.”

“Did — did it before?” John asked tightly. “Or is it because... your feather...”

“It did before,” Sherlock confirmed, and set a line of kisses up John’s throat, to his ear. “Warm and... infinite. Endless.”

Given courage by Sherlock’s words, John pressed his wings closer, and the sparks turned to crackling lightning. He bit his lip hard and reminded himself that he was human, at least a little. He found enough distance that he started to breathe again, though every subtle motion of Sherlock’s body lit new fires deep in his wings.

“How does it feel for you?” Sherlock asked.

“Good,” John said without hesitation. “Too good.”

“Tell me when it’s too much. I’ll stop. I promise,” Sherlock said, pulling his right arm back, leaving his left wound around John’s waist. He gently touched his fingers against the back of his wing again, easing them between the tertials.

John’s knees buckled as he started to lose his grip on his human form, forgetting all the minute details required to stay upright. Sherlock pulled his hand free of the feathers, but John shook his head, clutching gently but firmly at Sherlock’s other hand, pressed against his body. “Don’t stop. Just — balancing —” he explained, or tried to do.

Sherlock understood. Careful to avoid his feathers as much as possible, he steered John around to the foot of the bed. “Lie down,” he urged.

Brilliant. Absolutely bloody brilliant. John didn’t quite collapse, but it was a near thing, and he dragged himself just far enough up the bed that he wouldn’t slide back off. He relaxed his wings, letting them drape to either side of the mattress and onto the floor.

Sherlock’s weight pressed down at John’s right side, which eased more of his tension, because his right wing was intact (if not still a mess) and he was still self-conscious about the missing feather, even though Sherlock obviously knew exactly where it had gone.

“‘Beauty’ has always been meaningless for me, John,” he said as he went back to combing his fingers through John’s feathers. “But this... I’ve never seen anything like you.”

At least John had the bed to muffle his groan. He clawed at his remembered experiences for something appropriate to say, but the best he could come up with was, “I can see infrared.”

Sherlock’s hand stilled for a moment.

“And ultraviolet. Magnetic fields. All wavelengths of... things,” John said into the sheets. Probably thousand-thread-count bloody Egyptian cotton or something, knowing Sherlock. They were incredibly, indulgently soft, and John was never leaving this bed again.

The mattress shifted as Sherlock leaned close, his body finally warming up enough that the touch of his skin wasn’t shockingly cold. He kissed the back of John’s neck and whispered, “You might be perfect.”

Affection curled through John like the radiant warmth of the sun. He turned enough to look at Sherlock through one eye and smiled at him. “Of course I am. I put up with you.”

Sherlock laughed and pressed his lips against the highest scapulars at the edge of John’s left wing.

John nearly jumped out of his own skin. His wings flared out, smacking into the wide walls of the room, cracking the plaster on the right side, judging by the gunshot-sound of the impact. “Warn me!” he barked, voice cracking a bit.

“Too much?” Sherlock asked anxiously.

Shivering, John shook his head, burying his face against the bed. “Bloody incredible,” he muttered. “Just... Sherlock, no one has _ever_ touched my wings.”

“Ever?”

John shook his head.

Gently, Sherlock stroked his finger down the shortest tercial, right next to John’s hip. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

Trying not to twitch violently (the last thing he needed was Sherlock assuming a grand mal seizure and trying to perform emergency first aid), he nodded and said, “Don’t thank me. You’re not allowed to stop.”


	7. Chapter 7

In Hell (and in Heaven, unless things had changed dramatically), _touch_ didn’t exist. Not as humans knew it, at any rate. In Hell, a demon _was_ its wings, existing as an amalgam of waveforms rather than an assembly of particles. The interaction of waveforms created spinoff effects. The wing analogy made sense, because that was how power manifested when interacting with the earth, and because only a few theoretical physicists could come close to understanding the truth.

To ‘rip out feathers’ actually meant to sever fragments from a waveform, leaving the form incomplete, afflicted with a dissonant resonance that, if left unrepaired, could shatter the waveform and ‘kill’ the entity. All angels and demons had fought at one time or another, whether through simple collision or intentionally seeking conflict. He had been adept at it, in fact, at one point, though he’d never actually _enjoyed_ killing his kin.

Now, though, he preferred to live in this wonderful, physical world, where he had soft bedsheets and the promise of bacon sandwiches tomorrow morning and Sherlock — incredible, brilliant Sherlock, with fingers that could coax song from obstinate metal and wood — touching his feathers. In fact, after the shocks eased enough that John could think beyond them, he discovered just how very, very much he liked having Sherlock touching his feathers.

His first experience with food no longer qualified as ‘toe-curling pleasure’ — not in comparison to _this_.

Sherlock’s fingers teased each feather straight, gently compressing the barbs with soft touches, arranging the overlaps just so. Every motion shook free dirt and debris and sand picked up a year and a half ago. (Just because his wings were invisible and insubstantial didn’t mean that they didn’t catch all sorts of dirt just by existing, though he had yet to determine how it happened.)

At the moment, of course, he really didn’t care, except that it was more than a little embarrassing that every touch of his feathers sent up minuscule puffs of dust. Fortunately, Sherlock was distracted — more than that, his touch was distract _ing_ — and John soon forgot all about it, content to lay there for the next, oh, hundred years or so, getting petted.

“When do you do this?” Sherlock asked.

John turned that sentence around in his mind a few times, ran through his memories, and came up empty. “Mrph?” he asked into the sheets.

“Your wings! I watched for months while I was trying to find the right ritual to see them, but you never physically manifested them.” He sounded irritated, though his fingers never ceased their gentle exploration of John’s feathers.

John turned to rest the side of his face on the bed, blinking his eyes lazily open again. Sherlock’s thinking-mode expression was softened not just by the faint light of John’s wings but by the way his muscles had gone relaxed and loose, something that never happened except when he was full-out unconscious. It was surprisingly appealing.

“Didn’t,” John said, taking a breath and shifting on the bed, trying to focus his fuzzy thoughts. “That’s how this bloody mess started. Stretched my wings, knocked over the lamp, ended up with that stupid limp.”

It wasn’t often that John got to see Sherlock absolutely baffled. He bit back a grin at the way Sherlock stared at him. His expression was incredibly endearing.

“It was in hospital, somewhere... I don’t know. Some country.” John waved a hand in what was supposed to be a dismissive manner but ended up more as a flop. “I stretched my wings and knocked over a lamp just as a doctor was coming in, so I hid them away, only when I turned, I was balanced for them. They _are_ heavy, you know.”

Sherlock made a thoughtful sort of sound and moved. “What does this have to do with — _Oh,_ ” he breathed, shoving at John’s wing. It took a moment for the intent to register in John’s mind as more than rough petting.

Arching his wing up, John nodded. “I pretended injury, and the doctor happened to be a psychiatrist, just my bloody luck. Worse, a student or intern or whatever they have in psychiatry.” His memories weren’t clear on that, not that it mattered at the moment.

Sherlock twisted and laid down on his back, getting under John’s wing, and a couple of prods rolled John over onto his side so he curled against Sherlock’s body, wing draped over them both. “I _knew_ there was something wrong with that limp.” John didn’t have to see Sherlock’s face to picture the smug grin there.

“I’d had a body for... a week? Ten days?” John huffed and twisted to get Sherlock’s arm around him. He poked at a sharp collarbone and complained, “You need to eat more.”

Sherlock just hummed out a wordless answer and draped his other arm over John’s wing. Apparently, combing through his feathers had become reflexive, not that John was arguing. “If we move the rest of the furniture out, we can sleep like this every night,” Sherlock said thoughtfully.

“You don’t sleep every night.”

Sherlock’s huff tickled John’s hair. “Fine. If we move the rest of the furniture out, I can study your wings every night.”

“That’s the insane, suicidal scientist I’ve come to love,” John approved.

Sherlock’s arm tightened and his breath hitched, but only for a moment. His fingers never faltered in their exploration of John’s feathers and he said nothing, but for John, a moment was an eternity, long enough for him to analyze the way the air moving through human lungs and throat and sinuses shifted, the subtle tensing of each individual muscle and its subsequent effect on bones.

“It can’t be too soon to say it,” John guessed after considering the reasons behind Sherlock’s reaction. “We’ve been living together more than a year. We know almost everything there is to know about each other. We’re lying _naked in bed_ together. With my _wings_ out.”

“Can you?” Sherlock asked. He moved enough to look down at John, fingers burrowing into the soft under-feathers. “Love?”

“Of course —” John lifted his head and looked right into Sherlock’s eyes. “This is about me being a demon.”

“It’s not a... _bad_ thing.” Sherlock’s other hand, which had been still on John’s back, pressed against his spine to hold him closer, almost shifting John on top of him. “But you’re not...” He hesitated, licking at his lips. “You’re not aroused.”

John sighed and threw his leg over Sherlock’s hips so he could take the place of his own wing, pressed against Sherlock’s chest. “I’m not human. I don’t have those instincts unless I decide I want to. Complete control of the body and all that.” He moved up a bit — really, the man was impolitely tall — so he could kiss Sherlock’s perfect lips, tight as they were. “It’s not an insult to your body — you really are beautiful — but I love you for who _you_ are. How you think. You have no idea how amazing your mind is.”

Sherlock stilled, looking up at John in amazement, eyes flicking over John’s face as though trying to read his thoughts. He probably _was,_ in fact, knowing him. Then he moved his hands so he could gently cup John’s face and pull him down into a kiss that was almost as good as what he’d been doing with John’s feathers because the intensity of Sherlock’s focus was the same. Not that John himself had much experience for comparison. He’d dated because that was what humans did, and he’d gone through the steps of escalating sexual interaction when it seemed socially appropriate, but it had never been particularly engaging — at least not like this.

“Sherlock...” he said between breaths.

Lazily, Sherlock opened his eyes and looked up at John. He slid his hands off John’s face to comb through his hair before the lure of wings proved too irresistible for him.

John shivered and kissed Sherlock’s throat to feel his pulse there. It was accelerated but not rapid. It was wonderfully, beautifully alive, and John kissed it again. “You need to tell me what you want before you completely shut down my ability to think.”

After a startled pause, Sherlock laughed. And then, bastard that he was, he deliberately skimmed his palms over the leading edges of John’s wings, ripping a groan from John’s throat as he sank down against Sherlock’s body. “I want to do this,” Sherlock whispered.

John tried to rally enough to respond verbally but had to settle for a strangled sort of noise and a little nod. Sherlock wasn’t just following the edge of his wings. He was _caressing,_ fingers sensuously following every curve, teasing lightly over the soft barbs at the ends of his coverts. Every touch sent ripples of pleasure radiating all the way down to his longest primaries.

He got the chance to speak when Sherlock’s hands could reach no farther, and he had to bring them off John’s wings so he could start over again. “Sex?” John managed to ask, though the word cut off sharply when Sherlock’s fingers danced lightly over his scapulars again.

Sherlock shrugged. “If you want,” he said, sounding as if he wasn’t particularly concerned.

Palms flat on the bed, John forced himself up enough to look at Sherlock, though the touch on his wings was seriously threatening his ability to think, much less move and speak. As if sensing this, Sherlock stilled his hands, though he didn’t entirely let go of John’s wings.

“If you don’t want sex, why... the shower —”

A hard, calculating look came into Sherlock’s expression, there and gone in an instant.

John sighed and sank back against Sherlock’s chest. “One last attempt to chase me away,” he guessed. “Or... were you offering what you thought I wanted?”

Sherlock didn’t answer, but the subtle twitch of his fingers was answer enough.

John shook his head and deliberately touched his fingertips to Sherlock’s lips. “I like this. I want to be close to you. I like kissing you and being with you. But no — I don’t want sex unless you do.”

“Do you want me to stop touching your wings?” Sherlock asked uncertainly.

“If you even tried, I might break something. Like London,” John threatened, getting comfortable on top of Sherlock.

Laughing, Sherlock kissed the top of his head and dug his fingers in. He laughed even more at the strangled noise John made in response. “Sex is boring. This is better.”

John tried to answer — he really did — but Sherlock brought his hands around under the front of John’s wings, finding new feathers that he hadn’t yet touched, and John gave up even trying, surrendering to the absolute bliss Sherlock offered.


	8. Chapter 8

Diffuse sunlight filtered through the curtains to compete with the illumination of John’s wings. Sherlock’s pale skin seemed to glow with life and warmth and light. John gently brushed his fingertips over the errant curls of hair that slipped over Sherlock’s cheek.

“I know you’re awake,” John said quietly.

“If I’m awake, you’ll leave the bed. Therefore, I’m not awake,” Sherlock answered without opening his eyes.

John laughed. “Or I’ll stay here and make you tell me what you’re thinking.”

Sherlock’s lips curled up, and he opened his eyes to regard John with lazy satisfaction. “You’re perfect for me.”

“Thought I’m stupid.”

“You _do_ observe. It just took me a year to learn that you observe in non-human ways.” Sherlock shrugged.

John shifted his head back on the pillow so he could study Sherlock’s expression. The wing draped over Sherlock’s body told him more than enough about the way Sherlock had gone tense.

“I can observe, but I can’t read your mind,” John said gently.

Sherlock took a deep breath and rolled over onto his back. He turned his hands palms-up under John’s wing. John shivered; he was growing more accustomed to the touches, but even this idle petting threatened to shatter his composure.

“You don’t expect me to be something I’m not,” Sherlock said thoughtfully. “You don’t expect me to be nice to stupid people or to take boring cases.”

“I expect you to take out the rubbish or clean the fridge once in a while,” John pointed out. “I expect you to at least be civilized to paying clients and the detectives at the Yard.”

“You don’t expect me to stop my experiments.”

“You need them.”

You don’t expect sex.”

“You’re not afraid of my wings,” John countered as his sleepy mind caught up to Sherlock. He pushed up onto his elbow and traced little lines over Sherlock’s face, brushing over his cheek and eyelashes and lips. “You don’t expect me to be human.”

“Human is —”

“Don’t say boring,” John interrupted. “Don’t you dare say boring, because you are absolutely fascinating, Sherlock, and you are absolutely, entirely, wonderfully human. And I’m fine with being the only entity on earth who knows it, because that just means I can keep you all to myself.”

Sherlock looked up at him, eyes skittering over John’s face and down to his wings. “There’s room in my house for you to stretch them.”

“One day, you’ll warn me before the conversation changes.” John moved down Sherlock’s body, folded his hands on Sherlock’s chest, and rested his head on his laced fingers. “My wings and your childhood home, I take it?”

Sherlock combed his fingers up through John’s feathers, up to the coverts at the leading edge of his wings. “I’d have room to fix your feathers.”

“Fix?”

Sherlock shrugged. “Organize? Rearrange? I think ‘preening’ requires a beak.”

John laughed. “You don’t have to make excuses. I don’t want you to stop. You have no idea how incredible it feels — what you do.”

“Anyone could —”

“I don’t trust ‘anyone’ with my wings, Sherlock. I trust you.”

“Then I’ll fix them.”

“Why are you so interested in ‘fixing’ my feathers?”

Sherlock’s gaze shifted evasively. He was expert at lying when he wanted to lie, but apparently rubbish at it when he was naked in bed with a demon. _His_ demon.

“They’re a mess,” Sherlock finally said.

“So’s our living room,” John pointed out. “And the kitchen is a chemical hazard. Do you have the particular urge to clean those?”

Sherlock huffed. “Of course not.”

“Then why?” John smiled encouragingly and shifted, getting comfortable. Coincidentally, the motion pressed his wings against Sherlock’s hands, which immediately went back to combing through his feathers.

“They’re different,” Sherlock said quietly. “Special. They should be... perfect.”

The blushing that John had avoided for most of the night — well, the late part of the night, at least — made its reappearance. He ducked his head and said, “All right. Whatever you want, I’ll go along with it. I always do.”

“Then you’ll come home with me?” Sherlock asked hopefully.

“Are you going to introduce me to your mother?” John asked playfully.

Sherlock hesitated.

John was surprised at the stab of disappointment that went through him. “No. I was just —”

“John. It’s not —” Sherlock sat up, forcing John to do the same, but instead of pushing him away, Sherlock pulled him close. “It’s not that. Your human guise is _almost_ perfect, but Mother is even smarter than Mycroft. She might... notice something.”

“If she knew,” John said slowly, “would she be okay with it? Is she religious?”

Sherlock laughed. “We’re all scientists. Even Mycroft, in his own lazy, power-centric way.”

“Then all right.” John smiled. “I’d love to meet her.”

“Good.” Sherlock cupped John’s face in his hands and drew him into a kiss that started on the lips but moved quickly to his shoulder, then to his wing. When John gasped, Sherlock laughed, breath warm between the feathers. “We’ll call her this weekend. I don’t want to wait.”

 

~~~

 

John wasn’t hungry. He didn’t get hungry. Well, he did, but he didn’t _need_ to get hungry. By inhabiting his body, he changed his bioengineering design enough that his mitochondria could process _his_ energy, which was constantly replenished simply by existing. It hadn’t been an automatic function, but he’d set it up soon after learning that his military pension didn’t pay enough to afford both housing and food.

So he wasn’t hungry, but he’d be back in hell again before foregoing the pleasure of breakfast, especially now that he was certain (well, _mostly_ certain) that he wouldn’t be eating alone. So he filled a frying pan with bacon and toasted bread and brewed tea while Sherlock complained from the living room that no one was sending him any interesting cases.

“You don’t need a case today. We’re going out,” John said, bringing Sherlock a bacon sandwich on a plate. He made two for himself. Sherlock rarely ate more than half of a sandwich — a full one if he was absolutely starving.

Sherlock looked up, watching as he went back to get their tea. “Where?”

“The park.” John took out the teabags, added milk and sugar to each mug, and gave them a quick stir.

When John returned to the table, Sherlock asked, “What park? Is someone dead?”

“Not unless the ducks became serial killers.”

Sherlock blinked over the top of his laptop. “Ducks?”

John smiled. “Ducks. You’ll love them. Once I tell you what they’re saying, you’ll see.”

“Ducks.”

“Yes. Ducks.”

Sherlock huffed disbelievingly and took a bite of his sandwich and went back to ignoring John as he so often did, though now, he kept glancing in the direction of John’s unseen, insubstantial wings. Smiling, John read the newspaper and worked through one and a half sandwiches in the time it took Sherlock to take three bites. Then he opened his sandwich and just started nibbling on the bacon one-handed, typing with the other hand. The silence was wonderfully comfortable, and John smiled even more when Sherlock’s foot slid across to rest against his.

“I do,” Sherlock said after finishing his bacon.

John didn’t look up from his newspaper. “Hm?”

Sherlock huffed again. “Love you,” he said grudgingly.

John put down the paper.

Sherlock was staring at the laptop so hard that it should’ve burst into flames.

“Thanks,” John said, and went back to his sandwich.

Sherlock’s lips twitched. It wasn’t quite a smile, but it was close enough.

Finally, John put down his empty mug, folded the paper aside, and rose. “Bring the bread from your breakfast.”

Sherlock’s eyes flicked up to meet his. “Ducks,” he said, filling that single word with all the eloquence his beautiful voice could produce.

John smiled. “You don’t have an intrinsic right to be the only crazy one in this relationship. We’re going to the park, and I’m going to introduce you to the ducks.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Feather (John's Gift)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/561414) by [ghoulkitten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghoulkitten/pseuds/ghoulkitten)
  * [Wings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1305760) by [wibblywobblytime77](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wibblywobblytime77/pseuds/wibblywobblytime77)
  * [[Podfic] On Feathers and Bacon Sandwiches](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8350555) by [nutmeag83](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutmeag83/pseuds/nutmeag83)




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